Have you noticed that companies spend millions of dollars telling salespeople what to say, but they spend almost nothing teaching them what to ask? While the typical sales process has been defined many times over, organizations assume salespeople already know how to ask the right questions (at the right time), in order to engage potential buyers in a mutually beneficial business relationship.
In my first book, Secrets of Question Based Selling, I refer to strategic questions as: The Most Powerful Tools in Sales. That’s because in addition to gathering information, asked strategically, questions become one of your best opportunities to:
- Leveraging Curiosity to Pique the Customer’s Interest
- Transforming Lead Generation a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
- Establishing More Credibility Sooner
- Expanding the Customer’s Requirements
- Increase the Decision Maker’s Sense of Urgency
- Qualifying Forecasted Deals
- Creating Competitive Separation
- Setting Expectations Prior to Negotiation
- Securing Commitments to Move Forward
- Protecting Your Company’s Profit Margins
- Ultimately, Repeating Your Successes to Win More Business
…which is much more than just probing to uncover customer’s needs.
The evolution of the QBS Methodology represents the culmination of a career-long journey—one that has helped me realize that questions are more than just staples of everyday conversation. Perhaps this marks the beginning of a new journey for you as well; not only as a motivated reader, but as a student of Question Based Selling. Congratulations on taking the first step. I wish you the best!