If you’re in charge of sales, your main job is to make sure your company makes money. To do this, you need to help your salespeople become really good at selling. One easy way to help them is by teaching them to ask smart questions that don’t just get a “yes” or “no” answer.
When your sales team asks these kinds of questions, they can learn a lot from the people they’re trying to sell to. They can find out what the customer really needs, what makes them want to buy, and how much money they have to spend. Plus, these questions can guide the customer to decide to buy something.
Salespeople should practice asking questions in a way that helps them really understand what the buyer needs. They should stay away from questions that end with a quick “yes” or “no.” Instead, they should ask questions that start with “what,” “how,” “when,” and “why.” This makes the buyer give more detailed and helpful answers.
Examples of Good Questions for Sales
We’ve put together some examples of great questions that your sales team can use to learn more about the buyers and their situations. With these answers, your team can suggest the best products or services and make more sales.
Before we get into the examples, let’s talk about why asking open-ended questions is so good:
Discovering What Buyers Need
Open-ended questions make the buyer tell you more about their problems, goals, and what bothers them. This helps the salesperson really understand the buyer’s needs, instead of just guessing.
Making a Connection
Instead of just trying to sell something, focusing on the buyer’s needs helps the salesperson create a stronger connection and trust with the customer.
Creating Custom Solutions
Knowing more about what the buyer needs lets the salesperson offer products or services that really help the buyer.
Finding Out About Concerns
When a buyer can talk freely about their worries or doubts, the salesperson can deal with these issues early on. This stops them from becoming bigger problems later.
Becoming a Trusted Advisor
By asking smart questions and really listening, the salesperson comes across as someone who gives good advice, not just someone trying to sell something. This makes the buyer more likely to see the salesperson as a helpful partner.
Asking questions that help build a relationship lets the salesperson get to know the buyer better and earn their trust.
It’s good to remember that different buyers like to talk in different ways. Some may not want to spend a lot of time chatting before getting down to business, while others might like it.
A good salesperson can quickly figure out what kind of person the buyer is and adjust their questions to fit the buyer’s style.
Doing a personal sales test can help salespeople understand how they talk and act, so they can match or change their style to fit the buyer’s.
Here are some examples of good open-ended questions to help build a relationship:
Questions About Problems
These questions help find out what’s most important to the buyer and what motivates them.
Here are some examples:
Questions About Impact
These questions help the salesperson and the buyer talk about what’s bothering the buyer and agree on what needs to be done to fix the problem.
Here are some examples:
Questions About Solutions
These questions start the conversation about how to solve the buyer’s problems with the right product or service.
Here are some examples:
Questions About the Buying Process
These questions help the salesperson understand how the buyer decides to buy something, so they can help with that process.
Here are some examples:
Questions About Budget
These questions help the salesperson plan the right solution and can help the buyer figure out if they need to find more money.
Here are some examples:
Follow-Up Questions
Asking more questions during a sales talk helps the buyer think deeper and share more information.
Here are some examples:
Asking the right questions can help salespeople avoid problems and guide the customer through any issues that do come up.
To prepare your salespeople with questions for when buyers have doubts, find out what the most common worries are. Then create questions that can prevent or solve these problems.
Here are some examples:
When salespeople move forward in the sales process without all the information, they might not make the sale. A good strategy for asking questions means avoiding simple “yes” or “no” questions and learning to ask open-ended questions. This helps them find out what buyers need and want, offer the best solutions, and sell more.
Learning More
The Brooks Group’s IMPACT Selling® program teaches salespeople a six-step process for selling that helps them do well at every part of making a sale.
Are you asking the right questions? Every new customer should be asked questions that fit them, but these 13 questions have worked well over the years in many different kinds of businesses.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://pardonresearch.com/?p=3486