“What’s new?”  I was asked that question yesterday from someone I hadn’t spoken to in a while.  Talk about an open ended question!  It doesn”t get more open than that, does it?

Problem is..I was tongue tied. I had no idea of where to start to answer that really open-ended questions so I said ‘Not much.” And the conversation pretty much ended there.

‘Not much.’ was my response to a really open ended question?  Surprise, surprise. Of course, this might be the “How ya doin’? question that people ask as a greeting instead of a real question where they want a response.  But maybe not.  I just wasn’t going to work that hard to figure it out or ask for a clarifying question.  Instead of connecting us and starting a conversation, this very open-ended question left us with silence. 

Open ended questions – and  the power of asking for information and listening – is central to great collaborative selling.  Yet asking a Who, What, Why, When, How question takes more skill and expertise than just the way the question is worded.  The value to the prospect, and you, the sales pro, comes when the open questions are used with intent!

To be effective and valuable, great open-ended questions need to be:

• Targeted to the situation and person
• Open, but not too broad where the person doesn’t know where to begin
• Prefaced with the intention of the line of questions and a why you are asking
• Relevant and timely
• Followed by open ears and a paraphrase of what you heard

Let’s go back to the opening question ‘What’s new?” to initiate contact with someone you haven’t seen in a while.  Following the tips above, a more effective approach is:  “Hi Nancy, I haven’t seen you in a while. How is your new Sharpenz business going?”  or “How is the end of the school year wrapping up for your family?”  or “Last time I saw you, you mentioned that Kevin was in college. How have you adjusted to him being out of the house?”

Now, those are open questions, targeted to me, open and clear, and timely based on something they know about me (or better yet, tied into something we discussed in the past showing they listened the last time we were together) that connect me to something I can talk about!  They are a great conversation starter – and in business a great conversation and connection leads to sales opportunities.

The intent of these opening questions might not be stated, but the action of asking a relevant, personalized and meaningful clearly shows the intent of wanting to really connect with me and begin a conversation.

When you want to start a productive conversation, skip the “What’s new?” common greeting and make an intentional great connection.

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Filed Under: Sales Tips
Tags: Open ended questions, Sales Tips

Need some sales tips? Better yet, some top sales tips from experts who live and breath sales?  Besides this blog and my Timely tips ezine, a great resource for you is the Top 10 Sales Articles site!

Each month a panel of judges selects 10 articles from around the sales world to spotlight.  This month’s articles are written by Jill Konrath, Kelley Robertson, Dave Kurlan. Tom Ninness, Ivan Misner  and many more – including me!  To make it even more interesting, you can Vote for your favorite!

Please visit the site and have a look – you will definely benefit from great information.  And, if you would, vote my article titled the 3 “I”s of Open Ended Questions. I’d like to win this month!   

Though its great to hear from experts, some of my best learning comes from YOU. If you have a sales tip you’d like to share – send it to me – I’ll feature YOUR sales tips in a future post.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: Open ended questions, Sales, Sales Tips

Closing more sales. It’s the goal for sales managers and professionals alike.  And both are frustrated when it doesn’t happen.  How do I know this?  I ask!

During the needs analysis with a prospect, we always ask “What are the barriers to getting where you want to be?” or “What is keeping you from achieving the goals that are set?” Nearly 90% of the time, one of the reasons given by sales managers is that “My people aren’t closing sales. They do all the work and then the final decision is stalled. They don’t move them through the pipeline.”

If I ask sales people, “What keeps you from closing more sales?” I often hear, “The buyers don’t make decisions timely.”

When I ask buyers why they haven’t decided, they have said “They never asked!”

Okay, so what can be done to get buyers to decide and sales pros to close?  It may be more simple than you think – you need to ask! 

I can’t count the number of times I have observed or coached a sales pro to find out that they do a LOT of work to build the relationship, identify the wants/needs and demonstrate their value.  And then wait. And check in. And wait. Then check in again. But they never have asked to find out the answer!

Instead, there are important questions to be asked after the recommendation is made!  They questions fall into two groups:

• Objections
• Decisions

Unless we ask for their opinion on concerns/objections, we may never know where we really stand.  Until we ask for a decision we may never ‘win’ the deal.

What can you do to close more sales?  First, find out where they are in their thought process and if there are any objections, ask,

• “How does what we’ve discussed sound to you?”
• “What concerns do you have about this solution or me/my company?”
• “What barriers do you see in implementing this?”
• “How does this align with your goals?

Notice these are open ended questions that ask for opinions, ideas and feedback?

Then after listening and responding appropriately, ask for a decision:

• “What is the next action for you in the decision making process?”
• “Have we covered everything you need to make your decision?”
• “Are you ready to move forward?”
• “Can we initiate the paperwork today?”
• “Should we wrap this up?”

Some of these are still open ended to allow you ‘test the water’ before asking for a decision.  But then you HAVE to ask for a decision!

Want to know if this works?  Try it and you will see that it does.

The reason I am writing this post today is because I just used this process with the IRS. Yes the IRS!  They never say ‘yes’.  But I looked at appealing a penalty charge as an opportunity to sell – to build a relationship with the agent, ask for concerns, and then ask for the removal of the penalty.  The charge was relevant – in switching the Sales Pro Insider accounting systems last June, one of the federal tax payments was not made.

It took me two letters and a phone call – which is what sealed the deal. During the call I focused on building rapport, working through the situation together and then asking for the penalty to be removed. The agent cheerfully – really cheerfully – said he would recommend a removal.  I just opened the letter that said it had been approved! A large penalty was removed from the account.

This situation is a great reminder for us all – you don’t get what you don’t ask for. 

My recommendation to you?  Look at your pipeline. What prospects are stalled?  Which situations did you maybe not ‘close’ with the right questions? Then determine how to initiate contact with the prospect. Your objective is to first identify if there are concerns, find out if what you have discussed is of value to them and then ASK for a decision.  The decision might be the buying decision or a decision that they will take an action or talk with  you at a specific time.  And if you get a ‘no’?  Then you know where you stand and can move on to more probable prospects.

In the spirit of asking today – I ask you – who do you know would find value from this blog? Send them a link please!

And if you haven’t already done so, what keeps you from signing up for the Timely T ips ezine here?  Every few weeks you will receive the ezine with helpful tips and fun tidbits. Just for signing up you receive the Timely Tips to Achieve Your Goals eBook – a great roadmap and toolkit for you!

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Tags: Open ended questions, Sales Objections, sales success, Sales Tips

Every effective sales training course teaches sales professionals to ask open-ended questions.  These are the questions that start with who, what, why, when, how, etc.  Why are open ended questions so universally taught? Because:

• They solicit great information
• Get the person talking
• Allow you and them to find out if there is an opportunity
• Can show your expertise, IF you ask the right questions

All that sounds great, doesn’t it?  They really ARE effective.  But not 100% of the time.  Sometimes they can make a needs analysis seem like an interrogation.  Even though they are open they can be leading, forced, narrow, product focused and irrelevant.  Sales pros can come off like a robot reciting their list of questions so they can get to pitching their product! 

When we use the 3 ‘I’ approach, our open-ended questions include: 

1. Intent
2. Intelligence
3. Interest

Intent.  I’ve seen sales pros launch right into a list of questions that might seem irrelevant to the prospect.  The prospect thinks ‘What’s this have to do with anything?” Instead, we need to explain the intent of the line of questions so the prospect can put it in perspective and answer thoughtfully.

An example: Yesterday I received a call for someone who had something to offer.  They immediately asked me “So, what are you working on?”  My response?  “Wow, that’s broad, in what context?” They responded, “Whatever context you choose.”  Well, I was confused.  I knew what this person was selling and thought, should I answer my question based on that narrow interest or is he really trying to find out more?

So, I turned it back to him and said, ‘What are you working on?”  And then he responded. After 15 minutes I knew the flavor of his focus and we continued.

But why should I have had to work that hard?  If I knew where the discussion was going we could have both saved time.

To share intent can sound like this.  “We are going to talk about your human resource needs. What we have learned is that understanding  how this fits into the overall company’s goals and objectives helps us narrow down the approach and we will be able to give you a more accurate picture of how we might help.  The first questions are focused on that broader picture. Then we’ll get more specific.”  Then we go into our list of questions.

Intelligence.  Your questions reveal a LOT about you. Here’s how to raise your ‘perceived’ intelligence level:

• Explain the intent  of your line of questions and ask questions that broaden the dialogue to a bigger more strategic discussion. 
• Focus on the solution or value desired versus just the product.
• Wait to LISTEN once you have asked  a question. When you ask more intelligent questions, the person may need to think before responding (this is usually a good thing).  How long? According to research, they might need 15-25 seconds to think and respond.  That’s a long time to wait, but it can payoff.

Interest.  The questions should be ‘of interest’ to the person. How?  Make the questions relevant to the situation and person. When it’s about THEM, it’s interesting TO them. Every aspect of the sales process should be wiift focused – What’s in it for THEM? – and this includes your questions!

There you have the 3 necessary “I”s for making your needs analysis informative and not an interrogation. 

Of course I have learned many of these things the hard way.  With confused looks from prospects as I took a direction that surprised them. What have you learned about open ended questions?

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Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tags: Open ended questions, Sales training, skills