To establish credibility early in a sales call, a salesperson should _____.
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Great sales questions help you find out what’s going on in your buyer’s world. They help you connect with buyers, understand their needs, understand what’s important to them, and help them create better futures for themselves. They help you disrupt buyer thinking and change buyers’ perception of what’s true and what’s possible. They help you drive the sale forward and avoid pitfalls that can derail the sale along the way. Great sales questions help you win sales. Here we share 50 powerful sales questions that'll put you on the path to building rapport, navigating buyer wants, needs, and desires, and ushering sales to the close. Types of Effective Sales Questions
What Are Open-Ended Sales Questions?An open-ended sales question is a question with no definitive answer, aimed at prompting a longer or more insightful response from a buyer. Open-ended questions can be further divided into broad and specific questions. Broad open-ended sales questionsBroad open-ended sales questions get people to open up and start talking. They’re great for helping you find out what's going on in your buyers’ world and are essential to sales success. Examples of broad open-ended sales questions include:
Specific open-ended sales questionsSpecific open-ended sales questions are more exploratory. Some buyers might not share much information when you ask broad open-ended questions, or they might not know the answers. These questions uncover latent needs the buyer might not even be aware of. Specific open-ended questions yield one of three answers: an expression of need, no perception of need, or lack of knowledge. Examples of specific open-ended sales questions include:
Good open-ended sales questions help you connect with buyers personally, understand what's important to them, reshape their thinking, and create better futures for them. The importance of asking the right questions cannot be overstated. (Hint: you need to ask more than, "What keeps you up at night?") The idea is to move from general to specific questions, uncovering the buyer’s own perceptions of their needs, helping them to express a broader set of needs, and discovering enough information so you can present ways to improve that drive the buyer’s interest and the desire to act. What Are Closed-Ended Sales Questions?Closed-ended sales questions are great for diagnosis. Whether you get a “yes” or a “no” answer, it’s easy to follow up and get the buyer to elaborate. By asking closed-ended questions you can uncover needs that buyers may not yet perceive as a problem, but when you ask so specifically, they sometimes reconsider. Examples of closed-ended sales questions include:
50 Sales QuestionsBelow are 50 sales questions you can use in your sales conversations. The open-ended questions for sales are grouped based on our RAIN Selling framework for leading sales conversations: Rapport, Aspirations and Afflictions, Impact, and New Reality. Also included are questions for insight selling that you can use to get buyers to think differently, and questions to help you drive the sales process forward. One thing you’ll notice about these sales questions: they don't need to be complex. Oftentimes the basics are all you need. Tip: These questions are not a complete roadmap for a conversation with buyers. Explore questions as needed and be sure to listen to what your buyer has to say before launching into the next question. Sales Questions to Develop RapportBefore buyers will open up to you about their needs and desires, they have to be comfortable with you. Comfort (and trust) begin with rapport. Building rapport is sometimes dismissed as a ploy to make a superficial connection with a buyer. You shouldn’t make superficial connections; you should make genuine ones. Genuine rapport sets the table for the rest of the conversation. 7 Open-Ended Sales Questions to Build Rapport
Sales Questions to Discover Aspirations and AfflictionsMost sales advice suggests that you must first uncover the “problem” or “pain”—afflictions—to sell products and services as solutions to needs. This advice too often drives sellers to employ find-out-what’s-wrong-and-fix-it thinking. The sellers most successful at creating opportunities also focus on the positives—the buyer’s goals, aspirations, and possibilities the buyer doesn’t even know exist. You must ask questions that uncover both aspirations and afflictions. 10 Open-Ended Sales Questions to Uncover Aspirations and Afflictions
Sales Questions to Demonstrate ImpactYou must demonstrate to the buyer how working with you is going to improve their world. What are the personal implications? Business ones? Help the buyer see the impact of your work together. 6 Questions to Make the Impact Case in Sales
Sales Questions to Define New RealityOne of the greatest difficulties in sales is helping the buyer understand exactly what they get when they work with you. You need to paint a compelling before-and-after picture of what you will achieve by working together. You can only do this when you know what’s truly important to the buyer, which is going to be different for each one. 8 Open-Ended Sales Questions to Reveal a Buyer’s New Reality
Sales Questions to Generate InsightsPowerful sales questions can also be used to disrupt buyer thinking and to get them thinking differently. We call this insight selling. Many people think insight selling is about educating buyers through presentations. They’re about half right, but without the other half, they’re missing out on the full impact of insight selling. The missing link is asking insightful questions that disrupt buyer thinking. If you can change a buyer’s perception of what’s true and what’s possible, you can influence their agenda for action. 8 Powerful Questions for Insight Selling Success
Closed-Ended Sales Questions for DiagnosisMuch sales advice tells you to avoid using closed-ended questions. Closed-ended questions have a time and place and can be very powerful. Closed-ended questions can be great for diagnosis and ruling things out. After any closed-ended question, use one of the follow-up questions to get the buyer to continue talking. 4 Closed-Ended Sales Questions to Refine Your Solution
Follow-Up Sales Questions for ElaborationFollow-up questions provide a power boost to your sales questioning. These three open-ended questions alone can instantly uncover a remarkable amount of valuable information. 3 Open-Ended Sales Questions to Keep Buyers Talking
Process, Page, and Perception Sales QuestionsThere are four kinds of sales questions: problem and possibility, process, perception, and page. We’ve already covered problem and possibility. To win sales, you also need to know what the buying process is, what the buyer’s perceptions are, and whether you’re on the same page. 4 Questions for Buyer Alignment
The Best Sales Conversations Balance Advocacy & InquirySometimes all you need is to ask one question and the buyer will share all the information you need to help them. More often, you need to make several lines of inquiry. Don’t overdo it, though. You don’t want to make your buyers feel as if they're on the witness stand. Don’t forget that the most powerful sales conversations tend to balance inquiry (asking questions) with advocacy (talking, educating, giving advice). Coupled with strong advocacy, the 50 sales questions shared here will help you connect with buyers, uncover needs and opportunities, communicate the impact, and demonstrate your value by pushing back and getting buyers to think in new ways. These are all essential elements to winning sales consistently. GET THE LATEST SALES TIPS, TOOLS, AND RESOURCES Subscribe today to get the latest on virtual selling, insight selling, strategic account management, sales conversations, and more straight to your inbox. Topics: RAIN Selling Sales Conversations |