Feb 12, 2015 By Trish Bertuzzi

Does Your Sales Team Ask Great Questions?

in Featured, Sales

Every leader assumes their reps are asking questions that move the sales process forward but do you know that with a certainty?

The shortest distance between winning a deal and having it slip from month to month is a direct one. In fact, it's these direct questions that encourage prospects to share information, establish a personal relationship with us and increase our chance of selling our solution.

Here are some great questions I have collected in my travels.

Qualifying:

Was there a compelling event that caused you to request information/download our content etc.?

If there was a compelling event, you will uncover it right away and can position your product or service to address it. Talk about targeted messaging!
If there was not an event, then you know you have to invest in educating the prospect as they are at the very beginning of their journey.

What is the most important thing you hope to accomplish by investing in a solution like ours?

If the prospect can articulate what they want to accomplish it clearly defines where they are in the investigation process and whether or not they have a defined path for implementation. If you listen closely, you may even be able to ascertain if your competition has been defining their requirements.
If they can't articulate their objectives and success criteria, are they ready to invest?

What would you like to see happen as a next step?

As salespeople we are controlling and prefer to dictate what will happen next. Asking an open-ended question will allow you to see where they are in the process and can quite often move the process along faster than you would have thought. Think buyer’s journey not sellers.

Competition:

Are you considering other vendors?

Don't be shy — just ask. Everybody has competitors. Better to know now than to get blindsided later.

You are looking at 3 vendors, could you please rank them for me?

This will tell you a lot about your probability to bring the deal to closure. Why wait until the end of the sales process to find out where you stand? Finding out early will allow you to develop a strategy for becoming or staying number one.

Forecasting and Closing:

On a scale of 1 to 4 (with 4 being highly likely), how likely are you to select our solution?

This one's truly a great question. The answer allows you to ask follow-up questions that will increase your likelihood of success. If you end up with a 1 or 2, it is apparent you still have some work ahead of you. A 3 opens the door to the next question.

Can you give me 3 things that need to happen for me to win your business?

This makes the prospect stop and think. What does need to happen to move the ball forward? Once articulated it then becomes your verbal contract for next steps.

If you were me, would you forecast this business this month?

Ask the question...it will increase your forecasting accuracy. What? You didn't think they knew you were in sales and had to forecast? Get over it. Their answer opens the door and allows you to truly figure out where they are in the decision making process.

If you have great questions you have been using, feel free to share. Happy Selling!

About the Author

Trish was named one of the Top 25 Most Influential in Inside Sales by the AA-ISP for the fourth year running. Her research & ideas have been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Forbes, Inc.com & Success Magazine. Since founding The Bridge Group in 1998, Trish has promoted Inside Sales as a community, profession and engine for revenue growth. In the process, she & her team have worked with over 220 B2B companies to build, expand and optimize their inside sales efforts.