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Information Versus Interrogation: The Three ‘I’s of Open-ended Questions

Guest post by: Nancy Bleeke

Article Overview: Every effective sales training course teaches sales professionals to ask their prospects open-ended questions. These are the questions that start with who, what, why, when and how. But when used incorrectly, they can make a needs analysis seem more like an interrogation. Demonstrate professionalism by using the 3 ‘I’s with open-ended questions.

Information Versus Interrogation: The Three ‘I’s of Open-ended Questions

Every effective sales training course teaches sales professionals to ask their prospects open-ended questions.These are the questions that start with who, what, why, when and how.

Open-ended questions are universally taught because they:

• Solicit great information
• Get the person talking
• Allow you and your prospect to find out if there is an opportunity
• Can show your expertise, IF you ask the right questions

All that sounds great, doesn't it? Most of the time, open-ended questions really ARE effective, but not 100% of the time. When used incorrectly, they can make a needs analysis seem more like an interrogation - they can be leading, forced, narrow, product-focused and irrelevant.Sales pros can come off like militants drilling a suspect to get to the information they want so they can pitch their product. And this is definitely not the way to make a sale.

There is a way to demonstrate professionalism by using the 3 'I's with open-ended questions:

1. Intent
2. Intelligence
3. Interest

Intent. We have seen sales pros launch right into a list of questions that might seem irrelevant to the prospect, and the prospect thinks, "What does this have to do with anything?" It's essential to explain the intent of the line of questions so the prospect can put it in perspective and answer thoughtfully.

Sharing intent can sound like this: "We're meeting to talk about your human resource needs. What we have learned is that understanding how HR fits into the overall company's goals and objectives helps us give you a more accurate picture of how we can help as valuable resource for you.The first questions we'll cover are focused on the broader picture and then we'll get more specific into your training needs."Once the intent is shared, we go into the list of questions with better understanding from the prospect.



Intelligence. Your questions reveal a LOT about you. Here's how to raise your 'perceived' intelligence level:

• Explain the intentof your line of questioning and ask questions that broaden the dialogue to a bigger, more strategic discussion.
• Focus on the solution or value desired versus just the product.
• LISTEN once you have asked a question. When you ask intelligent questions, the person may need to think before responding, and this is usually a good thing. How long? According to research, they might need 15-25 seconds to think and respond.That's a long time to wait, but it can pay off.

Interest. Your questions should be interesting to the person. How?Make them relevant to the situation and person. When it's about THEM, it's interesting TO them. Every aspect of the sales process should be focused on what's in it for THEM - and this includes your questions!

Open-ended questions can make your needs analysis productive if you use the 3 'I's to guide your line of questioning. And with a little forethought and preparation, you will be seen as informative and not an interrogator.

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Article Tags: better sales meetings, sales booster, sales managers training, sales meeting ideas, sales professionals training, sales team training, sales training, sales workshops
Referred by: http://www.michelepw.com/



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Re: What Sells Online? - I agree with topeyinka, Information products(how to's) are whats selling right now.
Re: Quote of the Day - "Don't be embarrassed about asking "stupi - One of my favorite requests when leading a class, workshop, lecture, interview, whatever... There are no Stupid Questions, don't be afraid to ask - someone else has the same question, but is afraid to ask On the other hand - try anticipate the questions Back to the first hand - Some People ARE dummer than a ROCK
Re: Quick Ways To Utilize SEO Effectively - There are many different types of content: blog content, website content, newsletter content, audio & video content, the list can be endless. I'll just list 10 types of website content here: * Index/Introduction * Product Descriptions * Testimonials * Reviews * Resources * How-to Information * Downloads * Contact Information * Navigation/Site Map About/Company Info Anchor text as the others have said is the hyperlinked words on a web page - the words you click on when you click a link. Anchor text is important because it tells the search engines what the page is about. Used wisely, it boosts your rankings in search engines, especially in Google.If you use "click here" as the words people are going to click on, you're telling people the page is about the subject "click here", which is not the phrase you want to rank highly for, the text you need to use is a keyword that you have chosen for your website, blog or article. Take care, Carol
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Re: Contact Information - Another idea would be to have an email form in place to accept "ticketed" inquires (if people are afraid of spammers seeing their email address). However, I hate how some sites try to persuade you out of sending an email by bombarding you with lists of "Frequently Asked Questions & Answers" as I find they're rarely helpful.


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