1. We as salesman need to ensure that customer chooses the option we would want him to choose.
   But our option should not be pushed onto the customer. He should be able to make the decision
   to go with our option with his own free will.
2. A great salesman is the one who can listen to the needs of the customer much more than speaking of his product line.
3. A great salesman makes his impression by remembering the little things in a conversation with the customers along with the larger things in life. By taking notes during listening.
4. For example would you not like a salesman who listen attentively and then suggest you the best option as per your suggestion?
5. Please note if you understand this point well the author compliments on your new gained/recognized ability to impress any customer.

Introduction

This topic is for the professional who want to ensure a better conversion ratio.

Great sales people know how to convince the customer into a buying decision.

But inexperienced sales people make the mistake of trying to force customer into a particular product and not providing the choice to the customer.

Thus knowing to sell is critical but using the right strategy is also beneficial.

So offering the choices to people is essential to closing a sales.

But what choices should you offer and how will you make sure your options align to what the customer wanted.

Question Yourself ?

• • How would you like to have a salesman/saleswoman who listens to you often?

Author Suggests

• • What is active listening ?
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7LCTueQyKk
• 

Example of the situation

• • Imagine talking to you paint seller in your home town.
  • You ask him for suggestions to paint your roof.
  • He provides you colors that are good to paint interior walls.
  • Now the problem is that you were talking about exterior roof and the paints just won’t be right for the scenarios.
  • This can happen when sales people do not listen to the customer.

Question Yourself ?

• • What is probing?

Author Suggests

• • Probing is drill-down questions that help you understand the customer needs.
  • Probing is building trust so you can ask questions and receive honest feedback on the underlying need or problem trying to be solved by the customer.
  • These questions help you to open up the conversation and learn more about clients’ pain points.
    Some examples of great probing questions are:
    • What goals are you trying to achieve?
    • How are you going to achieve them?
    • What prompted you to enquire today – why today?
    • What does success look like to you in X period of time
    • If you did not have this product/service what would you do?

Question Yourself ?

• • What is Open Ended vs close ended questions?

Author Suggests

Referenced from https://www.clearvoice.com/blog/open-ended-questions-vs-closed-questions/

An open-ended question is one that can only be answered by a unique thought or statement in someone’s own words — it cannot be answered in one word, or by yes/no, or by multiple choice. Open-ended questions encourage people to come up with a more thoughtful and filled-out answer incorporating more of their own information and point of view.

Examples of open-ended questions:

1. Where would you like your business to grow from here?
2. What would success look like to you?
3. What campaigns are out there right now that caught your eye, and for what reasons?
4. What are a couple day-to-day practices of yours that people can implement for greater success/fulfillment in their own lives?
5. Can you give me a few dates for a follow-up call?

Benefits of Open Ended questions

• An open-ended question opens up a topic for exploration and discussion while a closed-ended question leads to a closed-off conversational path. After “Yes” or “No” or the specific one-word answer to the question, the thread is done.
• Open-ended questions lead to qualitative answers while closed-ended questions lead to quantitative answers.
• Open-ended questions ask people for their why while closed-ended questions ask people for their decision.

Closed-ended questions require one specific answer — either a yes/no or a choice between a few options. Sometimes they’re in pursuit of a fact, and sometimes a decision. These types of questions are used to collect quantitative data, which can be mapped out on charts or graphs.

Examples of closed-ended questions

1. Are you satisfied with your current sales numbers?
2. What is your #1 goal?
3. Did you like your competitor’s latest campaign/commercial?
4. Where can someone go to learn more about what you do?
5. When would you like to set a follow-up?

Why/when are closed-ended questions important to use?

• • • When you want to get fast facts or basic biographical details
    • When you need answers to be exact
    • When you are collecting quantitative data
    • When the answer provided will determine whether or not it makes sense to continue pursuing a lead (especially related to budget and timeline)
    • When you are setting goals and KPIs that you’ll be expected to deliver against
    • When you’re fact-checking
    • When your legal department is going to want to put information into a contract

Author Suggests

• • People want salesmen/saleswomen to be attentive to the needs of the customer.

Words of wisdom

• • Can we meet tomorrow to discuss this or would prefer to do it on day after tomorrow.?

Author Suggests

• • Be a good listener. Show people you are sincerely interested in what they are saying; give them all the eager attention and appreciation that they crave and are so hungry for, but seldom get. It is one of the most important principles of the formula for success in selling.

Author Examples

• • <<Adapted from Zig Ziglar>>One salesperson was going to meet a customer. However in the start of the meeting the customer told him he did not need the product as he had bought one just the other day and now he did not need it anymore.This salesperson turned the tide by asking a new question and listening intently to the response.”Mr. John, if you don’t mind telling me how did you ever happen to get started in your business?”
    • After that the salesperson listened for three hours.
    • Finally, Mr. John’s secretary came in with some checks for him to sign.
    • The salesperson now decided it is time to walk out. As he started to get up. Mr. John asked him.
    • “What do you want me to do?” he asked.
    • “I want you to answer a few questions,” Salesman replied.
    • Once during the interview Mr. John said, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all these things. You know more now than I’ve ever told anybody – even my wife!”
    • Never once did the salesperson feel that he’d sold them anything. They always bought.

    Instead of trying to give them the impression that he had all the answers, he made them give him the answers, largely by asking questions and then listening.

Author Suggests

• • • Read it several times a day. Memorize it.
    • The Subtle Art of Listening
  • Look people straight in the eyes when they are talking.
    Give them your undivided attention. This communicates that you think what they have to say is important.
    Listen to what people are actually saying.
    When you really listen, it makes your use of questions more productive; you will uncover what they are not saying.
    When you uncover what they are not saying, you have helped them discover what they needed to say, but didn’t know how.

Author Summarizes

• • Think before you speak
  • Listen more, talk less.
  • Speak only when necessary
  • Ask questions to probe?
  • Ask open ended questions more?
  • Some of the answers that the customer needs are not as simple to work with. And most of them are not as evident to you and others.
  • You have to take the time to listen to your customers and help them resolve the issues.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

See Pictures below

References from https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-questions

100 probing Sales questions

1. How can we help?
2. Could you please give me some background to this?
3. Why isn’t this particular item working for you right now?
4. Can you tell me more about the present situation/problem?
5. How long has it been an issue/problem?
6. How long have your been thinking about this?
7. How is it impacting your organization/customers/staff?
8. How much is the issue/problem costing you in time/money/resources/staff/energy?
9. How much longer can you afford to have the problem go unresolved?
10. When you went to your existing supplier and shared your frustrations about this problem, what reassurances did they give you that it wouldn’t be repeated?
11. How did these problems/issues first come about? What were the original causes?
12. How severe is the problem?
13. Why do you think the issue/problem has been going on for so long?
14. When do you need the issue/problem fixed by?
15. What kind of return or payoff will you be looking for if you get a successful resolution of the problem?
16. How often do you think the problem has come up where you weren’t even aware of it?
17. Who is ultimately responsible for this?
18. Tell me more about it.
19. Can you make an educated guess as to how much it costs you?
20. Why have you been dealing with this for so long?
21. Why do you think it is happening?
22. What’s your role in this situation/issue/problem?
23. What bothers you the most about this situation/issue/problem?
24. What are you currently doing to address the problem?
25. What have you done in the past to address the problem?
26. Have you used this type of product/service in the past?
27. Does this affect other parts of the business?
28. What has prevented you from fixing this in the past?
29. What kind of timeframe are you working in to fix this?
30. How long have you been thinking about it?
31. Who else is aware of it?
32. What is it costing you?
33. What is your strategy to fix this problem?
34. Who supports this action?
35. Is this problem causing other problems?
36. What practical options do you have to address this?
37. What kind of pressure is this causing you and the business?
38. Does your competition have these problems?
39. What goals and objectives do you have for this?
40. What is your biggest challenge with this?
41. What has made you want to look into this now?
42. In a perfect world, what would you like to see happen with this?
43. What are your key objectives with this?
44. What options are you currently looking at?
45. What options have you tried?
46. What do you like about your current supplier?
47. What kind of timeframe are you working within?
48. How important is this need (on a scale of 1-10)?
49. What is the biggest problem that you are facing with this?
50. What other problems are you experiencing?
51. What are you using/doing now?
52. If you could have things the way you wanted, what would it look like?
53. Do you have any preference with regards to the solution?
54. Is there anything I have overlooked?
55. Have I covered everything?
56. What alternatives have you considered?
57. Have you got any questions you’d like to ask me?
58. What is important to you in finding a solution to this?
59. What are your top three requirements that this solution just has to have?
60. How soon would you like to move with this?
61. What three key outcomes do you want from this?
62. How does this look/sound/feel to you?
63. Can you please tell me about that?
64. Can you give me an example?
65. Can you be more specific?
66. What other factors have we not discussed that are important to you?
67. Are there any other areas I haven’t asked you about that are important?
68. What sense of urgency do you have here?
69. What else should I know?
70. If you could design the perfect solution, what would it look like, how much would you spend, and how long would it go for?
71. What are the long-term effects of the problem?
72. What are the intangible effects of the problem?
73. Do you know in what other areas the problem is costing you money?
74. Can you put an amount on the problem in terms of cost: Weekly, monthly, annually?
75. Can you see how much money you/your organization loses every day by not solving this issue?
76. Does the issue cause problems with employee morale?
77. Does the issue cause problems that negatively affect the motivation of your staff?
78. Can this problem affect productivity?
79. How does the problem ultimately affect your current customers?
80. How does the problem ultimately affect your prospective customers?
81. How does the problem ultimately affect your sales teams?
82. How does the problem ultimately affect your other employees?
83. How does the problem ultimately affect your sales process?
84. How does the problem ultimately affect your pricing/selling costs?
85. How does the problem ultimately affect your reputation/goodwill/brand?
86. Can you see how this problem/issue can give your competition a competitive advantage?
87. If you were in your competitors’ shoes, how would you take advantage of this?
88. If you were your competition, what would you do right now?
89. Do you know what your competition is thinking/planning about this?
90. Do they suffer the same problem?
91. Is this problem unique to your organization?
92. Is this an industry-wide problem?
93. Is it regional/geographical/demographical?
94. How much does this problem cost you in man hours/time?
95. How much more productive could your people be if problem did not exist?
96. So what type of a number would you put on this issue in terms of prioritization?
97. Looking at this from a point of lost sales, how much is just one sale worth to the company?
98. Who did you work with last time and why?
99. Have I asked you about every detail that’s important to you?
100. How would you like change the current situation?