From Malcolm Gallagher.   Here's some sales thinking for the weekend!!

Let me ask you a question

Why is it that most salespeople say they know it's important to ask questions on sales calls, but few take the time to plan really great, provocative ones?

Investing time developing provocative questions will have an immediate impact on your sales results. I love it when a prospect says to me “that’s a really good question” because I know the answer they give me will give a true insight to their thinking and needs.

Great questions are provocative, forcing customers to look beyond the obvious, to analyse, assess and make decisions.

In selling, your ability to ask great questions is highly linked to your sales success. Great questions demonstrate your expertise and enhance your credibility. And, the best questions you can ask are highly provocative – ones your prospects can't possibly answer without seriously considering their business situation.

So how do you come up with provocative questions? First of all, it's virtually impossible to come up with them when you’re in the midst of a sales call. Too many other things are going on.

Provocative questions require pre-planning and a significant investment of your time before you meet with prospective customers. To develop them, you need an in-depth understanding of your own offering from a customer’s perspective.

Here's what you need to consider before you develop your questions.

1. Determine how your prospective customers are meeting their needs if they don’t use your product/service. Identify the 3 to 4 most likely scenarios you encounter. These scenarios may include competitive offerings, their older systems, or even doing nothing.

2. Define the key problems, difficulties and concerns prospects likely experience in each of these scenarios. Say them to yourself in your prospect's words.

3. Clarify the business implications of these problems. What’s the pain, what’s the gain? How do they impact productivity, time-to-market, legal issues, compliance, profitability, costs, operational efficiency, decision-making and more?

4. Determine the value a customer gets if they replace their current methods, systems or processes with your offering.

Don't just have a shallow understanding of your offering.

Here’s a thought. Most customers are living with a less-than-perfect system, service or product. They know it has its drawbacks but they've learned how to work around things and get by. Besides, they're much too busy to analyse every difficulty, aggravation or potential problem.

Most customers have no idea about the total cost of continuing to do things the 'same old way.' When you ask questions about the business implications or the value of change, they're provocative! They get your prospect thinking about why change is necessary - and why it's needed now.

And better yet, these provocative questions create a reason to do business with you today not in the distant future. Plus, they demonstrate your knowledge and expertise – making you an invaluable resource to your customer.

To ask provocative questions, it also helps to frame them with your knowledge of your customer's business, industry, or market trends.

A data shredding business could ask (after having discussed say recent news about data theft)
What would be the impact on your company if your customer data fell into the wrong hands from either being stolen or through careless disposal?
Go on start putting together your selection of provocative questions. It applied to ALL businesses!

Send me your thoughts or even a selection to publish in a forthcoming issue! Free publicity!