Salespeople like to talk. And, that's fine. But salespeople that actively listen tend to be better and to do that you have to get good at asking questions. For this post I'm going to give you a quick list of questions for you to use.
As always you can listen by watching this video or read on...
If you want to read more on the topic of using questions in your sales activity, as it's a big topic, then you should start by reading DISCOVER Questions Get You Connected: for professional sellers by Deb Calvert. Buy it and it'll make you a better salesperson (it's part of our onboarding for new team members).
Ask these when you're getting to know a prospect - you'll quickly learn their challenges and goals and if you can help:
The questions we look at next each have a type. This is because every person you speak to is different. They all see value in different ways and it's important to talk to people how they want to be talked to. You'll learn more about this style of sales in the Discover Questions book.
You may well be thinking "how do I know the type of person I'm talking to?". Well, do your research about each person before speaking to them; start with LinkedIn, make sure you always have Ideal customer research so you know the decision makers that you're talking to, and use the handy Chrome extension called Crystal to get personality insights.
You'll also see that all of the questions help to get an open-ended answer. This helps the person you're talking to give you more detailed answers and avoid simple answers like 'no'.
I've also included blanks in some questions as you'll need to replace those parts to be relevant to your products, services, and prospects.
Use these once you've learnt more about your prospects. Use these to start to position your products and services as potential solutions:
These work for almost every type of lead you generate from content, such as a person downloading a document from your website:
Good prospecting is about starting with decision makers that are active in their buying journey, i.e. somebody from an Ideal customer visits your website. With the HubSpot Prospect tool you can see what companies visit your website. At this stage you don't know what people but you can use your Ideal customer research to know the typical decision maker, find those people on LinkedIn, and start the sales process with these questions:
This style of question isn't about giving it a hard sell. It's about encouraging your prospects to take a step back and consider things from a different angle to help progress the conversation:
There's a lot more we can get into with questions. We take it a step further and use hero and positioning statements instead of the typical elevator pitch.
Questions and active listening are an essential part of being a successful sales person. If you'd like to learn more then take a look at our sales process services or subscribe to our newsletter for more posts and article on business growth, sales, marketing, and websites.