March 20, 2006

While your reps are probably brimming with knowledge about your products and can deliver a forceful pitch with confidence and panache, they may be coming up short when it comes to an often overlooked, but vital selling skill: Asking questions.

At least that's what U.S.-based sales trainers Richard Hodge and Lou Schachter believe.

The two argue in their recently released book The Mind of the Customer: How Great Companies Like UPS, Lexus, and Nokia Reinvented the Sales Process to Accelerate Their Customers' Success that effective questioning is a pivotal factor in the success of sales professionals.

The best salespeople ask incisive questions that get each party's interests onto the table, say the two authors. In fact, they point out that effective Q&As will challenge customers in a positive way, which may help them see their businesses in a new light. Such high-impact questioning will also get prospects really talking, perhaps even offering up information that would otherwise be unavailable to the seller.

But not every question is necessarily a good question, they say. Hodge and Schachter urge reps to ask open-ended queries that are carefully designed to provoke ideas, even feelings.

Here are some of their examples of high-impact questions.

• What's your number one challenge right now and what are the possible causes of these? How do you feel about these challenges?
• What is your 'ideal solution'?
• What opportunities do you most seek?
• How does this purchase fit into your team's goals for this year?
• What is your number-one objective in this purchase?
• What concerns have people raised about this purchase?

While many of these questions are similar to the ones most reps ask already, they are phrased in such a way as to provoke more discussion and insight, say Hodge and Schachter.

According to the two authors, an executive's purchasing interests are often hidden, intentionally or not. The best way for a salesperson to elicit these interests is to ask well-developed, open-ended, high-impact questions at first meetings and during negotiations.