I Have Just One More Question

Remember that kid in your class who would always raise his hand to ask questions? It was always the same kid who would shoot his hand up before the teacher would finish answering the previous question. You could always count on this kid because they had all the questions covered. You were never sure if they asked questions to hear themselves talk or if they really had an analytical mind. Were you that kid?

What about when you are on the phone and you start firing questions out to your prospects? Do you think you might have them in a headlock?

When you are outbound dialing 60 calls per day and you finally have a live voice, you get so excited to get them on the phone that you bravely run through your qualification questions. However, the more you ask, the more your prospect gets annoyed and by the end of the call, they want out and don’t want anyone from your company to call on them ever again. What happened?

Questioning is the most important and complicated sales skill. It includes the following four components:

1. How you formulate the question–when you ask a lot of closed-ended questions, you’ll get shorter answers.

2. The order in which you ask questions–if you ask the timeframe and budget question too soon, you will distance the prospect.

3. The tone and style you utilize–interrogative tone and survey style disengages while consultative and active paraphrasing engages.

4. Your questioning map or criteria–where are you going with your questions.

There’s nothing worse than losing trust with our prospects and when we are asking questions, we are controlling the call and leading the discussion. Losing trust can result in a bad call and ultimately a lost sale. Remember that all four of these components must work together and be synchronized. When we ask a question that’s out of order, formulate it too broadly and don’t listen to the responses, we are in danger of losing trust with our prospect.