Sales Chump

Open ended questions can be the most important tool sales reps have to determine customer needs.  Too many times will sales reps just talk and talk and never find out a prospects true needs.  When this happens, the sale is usually not made or money is left on the table.

You wouldn’t expect a car salesman to show you every car on the lot, with every option, in every price and in ever color.  How inefficient is that?  The sale is likely to be lost unless the car they want is the first one shown.

All sales should be viewed this way.  The product you’re selling much likely has multiple options, terms and pricing.  How do you know what best fits the customer’s need without asking open ended questions?

When you ask open ended questions, questions that require a response that is more than yes or no, it allows the customer to open up.  You should be able to determine their wants, their concerns, their needs and other things that are on their mind from these questions.  Make sure you take good notes and even repeat certain things to make sure you fully understand.

Below are several open ended questions.  Use them and watch your customers do all the talking and you do all the listening.

• How has the economy affected your business?
• What is your competition like?
• When you go over your monthly expenses, are there any that remain constant?
• Where do you see your business in five years?
• What got you into this type of business?
• If you could freeze any of your expenses, would you do it and why if so?
• When you got into business, what were your expectations?
• When analyzing your expenses, do you look for ways to improve your bottom line?
• Have you entered into fixed contracts before? How did that work out for you?
• What do you think about having the ability to protect your upside while taking advantage of the downside?
• What type of protection are you looking for?
• What are some of the things your current supplier does that you like?
• What are some of the things you would like your current supplier to provide that they don’t now?
• Who else is involved in the final decision?
• What risks do you want to avoid?
• What other factors come into your decision making process?
• Other than price, what other things are you concerned with?
• What time frame are you looking at?
• What steps do we need to take to move forward?