Relationship Questions - Are you Boring your Clients?

How Good are Your Questions?

A great salesman uses questions to engage clients and bring out the best from them.

A poor salesman uses questions to bore their prospects.

Which one are you?

Nearly every salesman has a variety of questions that they ask their clients and prospects during a sales meeting.  These include:

• How can we help you?


• What vendor do you currently use?


• What do you know about our product?


• How long have you used your vendor?


• If you could name three things that your vendor does wrong, what are they?


• What is your order volume?


• What price do you pay?


• What if I could get you a better deal?  Interested?


• What is your budget?


• Can you make the purchasing decision or do you need to talk with someone else?

Here’s the problem with these questions – they bore your customer.

It’s Deja Vu all Over Again

Man, you ask the client all of these questions and get them to answer the questions.  You now have a great list to go back to the office and prepare a proposal.  You are psyched.  But the problem is, your customer is bored.  They hear these questions all the time.  The sales representative from the current vendor asked them last week.  They will probably hear them again next week from someone else.

You are now just like everyone else.

You thought that you benefited from the meeting because you got a bunch of information.

But here’s the key: your client didn’t gain anything from the meeting.  Not. One. Thing.

The sales call went over things that the customer already knew.  The clients that you asked really bored them as they didn’t gain any knowledge from the meeting.  It was like an interrogation to them.  The same one that they undergo all the time.  Yuck.

Conclusion

Question are a powerful took in the sales arsenal. Just be sure that you don’t use questions to bore your client.  They have heard all of them.  Next time, we’ll go over the proper techniques that will energize your client through questions.

 

Gary Swiftbonds, Our short bio

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Relationship Questions - Are you Boring your Clients?

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What is expected of you? Building relationships through questions

So, what do I expect from you?

It is not easy building relationships.  It takes energy and time.  The tools that we are providing in these sales technique posts are just that, tools.  You add these tools to your toolbox along with the basic techniques that you’ve gathered over time.  As you add these new techniques in asking questions, through different question types, you will be adding these new tools that can increase your effectiveness.

Once you have added these tools, you must remember to use them properly.  Any tool is worthless when it is used in the wrong manner (have you ever stripped a bolt when using a set of pliers instead of finding the right size wrench?  Me neither).  Instead of just using the first technique that you learn, you should instead take a bit of time to analyze the situation and create a strategic response.  That way, you can choose the best tool for the job.   But if you just try these techniques haphazardly, then they will not be very effective and it is likely that you will become discouraged from using them in the future.

Once you master the tools, you will start having an incredible effect on people and your satisfaction will skyrocket.  And the real-world results – bottom-line sales – will be stunning.

What sorts of problems are addressed in these posts?

Here are the most common issues that the tools can address:

• I have trouble getting my foot in the door.


• Prospects are in a hurry.  They want the sales information, but then wait on making a decision.


• Customers only say that they value service.  They want the lowest price.


• I feel like I am wasting my time on prospects that go nowhere.


• I get pushed down and I am forced to deal with non-decision makers.


• I feel like I am ready to close the deal and then something happens at the last minute to take it off track.


• My prospects says that they are not happy with their current vendors, but when I contact them they say that they are not looking to change at this time.


• I just cannot get to the right person.


• My presentations seem to fall on deaf ears.


• I get the run-around.  Prospects say that they don’t have the money to purchase right now.

All this and more is what we will try and teach you in these posts.  Keep tuned.

Gary Swiftbonds, Our short bio

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What is expected of you? Building relationships through questions

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