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Perfect Way To Lead Sales Conversations

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

Introduction

The only way to become successful in sales is by learning the art and science of asking
questions and keep improving on the same.

Selling is about helping the customer to solve his pain points, achieve his goals or
aspirations. To do that you need to learn the art of understanding the other person. One
simple, powerful and effective way is by asking questions

In most of the situation, if the prospect has already decided to buy the product from
you, the prospect will answer your questions exactly the way you want them and you
can present the benefits of your product and it perfectly matches.

However, we are living in a real-world and complex world. The prospect has multiple
options and he is constantly evaluating. He does not want to decide too early. 

Having said that this one skill will enable you to plan your call in such a way that you
take the control of the situation and ask the questions so that you can qualify the lead
and decide to go ahead with the opportunity.

Here is a simple method

Needs Feature Benefits

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

Write down the feature and benefits of your product o5 points each

The idea is to do some reverse engineering to find out what are the needs. For
example, a sales executive is selling a Printer. One of the benefits that your printer
provides is less cost per print and that saves money and time. 

Now let us say you are printing a lot of papers and your product will use less ink, faster
and because of that it cost less

So to understand the need of the prospect you can construct some questions around
this

-       How many prints that you do in a day or week?

-       How long does it take to take 1000 prints?

-       How much are you spending currently on prints?

Based on the answers, you can say in one month you are spending on an average of
Rs.50000/- on printing

Trust you get the idea, develop your questions in this way it will really help you for your
next call. 

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

However, that is not just enough. You need to ask great questions, smart questions that
will help you to get the quality answers

One of the most powerful skills that we can develop in sales is the skill of asking
questions, and being able to obtain information from prospects is fundamental to
providing the right solution. However,  the question is what type of questions you need
to ask to get the information that you need from your prospects and clients?

If I ask you what is that you would like to know from the prospect before you present
your product, you will give a lot of answers. How do you get these answers, you may
say by asking open questions and closed questions. However, it is not just the open or
closed questions, there are more “ Types” of questions that will help you get deeper and
more relevant information

7 Methods Of Asking Questions

Here are a series of different types of questions you can ask your prospect to get
quality answers.

Probing Questions 

These are questions to understand more and get further information. For example, the
customer may say they are looking for a quality product. A probing question can be
“What do you mean by quality product?”  or Customer may say “ you are expensive” to
understand more you can ask a question “ What do you mean by expensive?” 

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

Rhetorical Questions 

These are questions that you are not expecting an answer to. In fact, you are making
the client think as if the question is asked by him and you are giving an answer. Forex: I
am sure you must be wondering what kind of after-sales support that we provide? If
that is the case, then we provide excellent after-sales service. that is what you need
when you invest in a product like this, isn’t it?

Focused Questions 

These questions are asked when you want to narrow down the discussion to specific
areas. For example: “You mentioned that you are expanding, what is your expansion
plan?” this focuses on what the customer area of expanding

Reflecting Questions 

These questions are asked to understand specific details clear….. For example “When
you say you are planning to start this project very soon, what do you mean by very
soon? This way will help them to reflect on and help you go further and deeper
questions

Hypothetical Questions 

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

This is to make the prospect or the customer think of different scenarios. For example,
“What would happen if don’t invest in this?” Suppose if we say that we will be able to
supply 25% Immediately and the rest of the quantity in next month? These questions
will get the prospect thinking about the possible situations

Clarifying Questions

These are questions that you ask when you have a less understanding of the situation.
For example: What happened? Could you elaborate on this? What do you mean by
that? You increase the clarity of meaning when the prospect answers these questions

Confirmation questions

These are questions that you ask to get confirmation from the other person. Forex: Can
we meet next week at 10 a.m.? Trust my understanding is correct? Anything else that I
need to know? You will only get an answer as “Yes” “No” or “Maybe” 

There are many more types of questions. What you’ll see is that many questions cross
over each other so the questions can be open or closed. The most important is the
context in which you ask these questions and understand more about the customer.
The real point is not what questions to ask? It is about how can I  ask questions that will
lead to the best of the sales discussions?

Remember it is not just about what to ask, it is also about how you ask that is
important. 

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

How to ask questions?

Very good well-structured questions are not only great for finding out the information
from your prospects and customers and helping to move the sale forward. They are also
important to build value for your product and solutions that ultimately will help you
close more sales.

The only way to move your discussions away from price and create more value is by
understanding more about their needs. Only by asking questions related to their
objectives, pain points, wants, and needs.  

Most of the sales happen when you communicate both the functional and emotional
benefits to the customer and create value for your products. 

-       What is the value of your product or the solution to customers? 

-       What is the impact that is going to create for the stakeholders? 

-       What are the emotional benefits that the customer is going to get? 

-       How does your product help in increasing the revenue, saving the cost, or reducing
the effort? 

-       Once you are very clear with these you can move your discussion from the price to
value? 

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

You can do this by asking these types of questions

These questions will actually build the strength of your company in the prospect’s eyes:

·       What kind of support that you require from your supplier?

·       What are your major concerns?

·       What kind of help and support you want from us to address these concerns?

·       Would it help if we offered training to your staff on using our products?

·       What happens if we don’t deliver your order in time? 

·       What is the long-term vision of your organization?

·       How can we optimize your process?

·       What would be an ideal situation after using our product?

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

The point is, these types of questions will help you to shift the buyer’s perspective away
from the price discussion. The reason is that these questions will help you focus on the
ideas and concepts that build value and focus on the results that the prospect or the
customer wants to achieve. The idea is to make the buyer think about the benefits that
they can receive from your product, solution, or offer. They see more value in doing
business with you. 

One more important aspect that has truly been accepted across the globe for
thousands of years and that will help you to sell it to modern-day buyers. 

Imagine you’re walking around a mall and a man or a woman approaches you and trying
to engage with you. Initially you ignore him, however, he asks one question that is so
powerful. You start thinking a lot and you find yourself drawn into the conversation. You
start engaging with him. He actually doesn’t take any position and you start questioning
how you see that situation. As you end the conversation and leave the mall, the ideas
with his questions have planted are creating a curiosity.

Practicing Socratic way of questioning

This is what the Greek philosopher Socrates had on the crowds that listened to him. He
was a master in that. His ideas made people listen to him. His style was very effective,
not just because of his knowledge, but because of his method of questioning. We can
really learn some very insightful lessons.

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

Very few salespeople have heard his form of questioning. It would useful to identify how
some of his thoughts can be used in these remote selling skills

In fact, Socrates' way of questioning was so powerful that he was called the father of
questioning. He was of the firm belief that just by questioning, you can change the
person's belief or will help them reconsider their viewpoint. You may wonder what is
that he did that we can learn even today?

The secret is he answered most questions that were asked of him with another
question. Then, he used questions to discover what another person’s values and beliefs
were. That is the basic foundation of persuasion.

After that, Socrates would frame questions to direct the thoughts of listeners in the
way he wanted them to think, while they thought it was their ideas and thoughts. 

This was followed by a question that was framed to overcome resistance, something
that we could do if we are faced with objections or concerns.

Remember, it looks very easy to say answering a question with a question is a very
simple theory, based on our experience many people get the entire concept wrong. 

For example, if prospects ask you

“ Can you tell more about after-sales service?” 

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

If you ask a question “ why are asking about that?” the conversation can go in the
wrong direction

However, if you rephrase, “ I completely agree with you that after-sales service is an
important area for you. what is that you would like to know in particular about after-
sales service? 

This will help you to get exactly what the prospect is looking for and it will also help you
to give a specific answer rather than just give a general answer.

Moreover, Socrates used questions to discover the value and beliefs of other people.
This is also used in coaching clients. This is one of the wonderful ways to open up the
conversation. It is a very simple and powerful way. You can ask questions like 

-       What makes you feel that way?

-       How did you arrive at that?

-       Would you elaborate on that?

-       What do you mean by that?

These questions will help you dig deeper and encourage the prospect to share the real
issues and concerns

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

It is believed that Socrates also used a method of questioning that would take the
conversations in a way that he wanted them to go.

Questions like “ How much saving that you are planning to do here? Do your current way
of working will help you to save the cost that you are looking?

In the end, the idea of using questions to overcome resistance or concerns. Be it the
price, on-price objections, or even negotiations, where the information was held back
and they were reluctantly sharing information. The idea that Socrates used was to
make statements that you know are wrong and the prospect has to correct you. 

For example, so, you are using the current product because it is economical. Is that
correct?”. However, you know that it is incorrect, but you want to find out the real
issues

This type of question means that you have properly built a rapport with the customer.
So they are more willing to share more information with you. If you ask direct questions,
you will get the direct answers

Socrates lived for over 2500 years ago. It has been used by many people. If you use and
apply this effectively, your prospects may not be aware of these techniques

6 types of questioning
In fact, Socrates method of questioning has 6 basic types of questioning

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

This can be applied while discussing with the prospect

-       Questions for clarification

o   What makes you say that?

o   How does this relate to our discussion?

o   What do you mean by that?

o   That means….?

-       Questions to probe the assumptions

o   What could we assume instead?

o   How could we verify that?

o   What do you think would happen if…..?

o   You are thinking about this. Am I right?

-       Questions that probe reasons and evidence

o   Could you elaborate on that?

o   Can you give me an example of that?

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

o   What you think would have happened?

-       Questions about the viewpoints and perspectives

o   What is the alternative to this?

o   What is another way to look at it?

o   What are the strengths and weaknesses?

-       Questions that probe implication and consequences

o   What are the consequences?

o   What happens, if we don’t agree to that?

o   What happens, if you don’t do this initiative?

-       Questions about questions

o   Then what would happen?

o   Of all the things that you mentioned, what is the one aspect?

o   What is the most important to you?

Persuading others using questions

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

The information would have given you some idea of Socrates’ primary purpose when
utilizing his technique of asking questions was to get to the truth of a particular issue. In
a sense get to the real needs of the customers. This method of questioning can also
help us give the tools we need to persuade others.

The persuasive questioning method is a conversation with those who wish to engage in
an examination of their belief and ideas. This type of conversation does not have any
goal in mind. This is different from the persuasive argument, where the goal would be
to change the mind of the other party. 

Suppose if you are giving a presentation to a group of engineers with the data and the
reports stating that the one biggest challenge in your city in the next 5 years will be
about the safety of the bridges. You will get more suggestions on how drunk drivers and
potholes are more unsafe than the bridge.

On the other hand, if you ask questions like, 

-       When was the last time bridges in this area were properly serviced and inspected?

-       What is the maximum weight each bridge can handle at any given time?

-       How much weight is crossing the bridges during the times of heaviest traffic? 

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

-       What is the average cost to bring each bridge up to modern standard vis the
potential loss of life if the bridges collapse?

The engineers in the room will be focusing on an attempt to respond to those questions

A belief in their responses is when someone answers the questions, you have asked
them they generally will hold their response to be true and accurate. They know they
have worked hard and researched their response, or know the response is based on
education and hard work. This means that they are more assured that any of the
conclusions they come to from answering one of your questions are correct. 

Determine what facts you already assume when thinking about what questions you
want to present to a group, it will be important to think about what facts you already
assume to be true.

I hope you found this book as an introduction to asking the right sales questions. I do
hope you can see yourself using these techniques at work and also in your everyday life
to reach your goals and reach higher success. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this book and learn the principles of asking
questions. I do hope that you can apply these techniques. Don’t worry if you’re not sure
of everything at first. The more you apply and reflect you will be better at it. Just
remember, asking the question is an important skill

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 Power Of Asking Questions In Sales Conversations

Hope you found this e-book useful

If you want to take next level and master the art and science of
asking questions , here is a great opportunity. 

I have an online course where I go in detail on how to implement

what is covered in book and a lot more. Click link below to access
your course

GET ACCESS TO COURSE NOW

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1. Attention to individual needs is the key to any successful

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Provided the right tools, every sales member can produce the results 
4. Sustenance of the behavior change is the key to success 
5. Coaching provides the mechanism for change and helps scale new
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