Everyone’s heard the saying “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”
I think it was Carl Sagan who said “there are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions…”
From a sales conversation perspective, GOOD questions are those that:
- Are open-ended.
- Are about what they just said.
- Entice the person to share their story (their why or why not).
- Make the other person think differently about the topic you’ve asked them about.
It is tough (at least in my experience) to come up with GOOD questions at the moment. This is why I have question strings that help create a question on the fly from what you hear;
- How important is __________ to you?
- Help me understand…
- How does __________ affect you?
- Why…
- Why not…
- What does __________ mean for you?
- What happens if __________?
- In an ideal world, how could your __________ be better?
- To what extent…
- In what way do you…
- If there was any one thing you could change about __________, what would it be?
- What sort of obstacles seem to get in the way when __________ happens?
- How many hoops do you need to jump through to get what you need when __________ happens?
- Give me an idea of how…
- Go through the…
- A lot of my customers are tired of __________, is that something that frustrates you?
- How does __________ impact (insert what is important to their customers)?
- How does __________ impact YOU and what you have to deal with on a daily basis?
- How often do you find yourself annoyed with the cost of __________?
- In an ideal world, how could __________ be less frustrating?
- Please describe…
- Please explain…
- Are __________ a headache for you or is it actually more like a migraine?
- What about __________ constantly annoys you but you’ve given up trying to do anything about it?
- Many of my customers share they are annoyed dealing with __________. Where does that frustration show up for you?
Of course, these strings are also a great basis for creating specific questions you want to ask BEFORE you make a call.
Curiously yours,
Lynn