Questions Are The Answer

I recently had the opportunity to observe a sales “conversation” at a sizable Las Vegas trade show. The interaction occurred at a booth, smack dab in the middle of the Mandalay Bay Convention Center.

It began when a small group of attendees stopped by the booth to inquire about the service being offered by the exhibiting company.

A member of that group (the company CEO as it turns out) asked an innocuous question of one of the booth staffers – a question that could have been easily answered with a couple of short sentences or, better yet, one or more probing response questions.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it played out.

Instead of turning the tables and (professionally) grilling the inquisitive attendee with a few strategic questions that might have revealed pain points and buyer motivations, the staffer went into a 5-minute monologue detailing nearly every aspect of the company’s service offering!

It was a cringe-inducing demonstration of how NOT to conduct a sales “conversation” with a prospect.

Note that I’ve put the word conversation in quotes twice already in this article. I did so to call attention to the fact that many sales people confuse monologue with dialogue.

Monologue is a one-way form of communication that doesn’t give the other party an opportunity to engage in or contribute to the discussion. It’s the equivalent of a lecture!

Dialogue, on the other hand, is a two-way exchange of ideas and viewpoints. It provides ample opportunities for astute sales professionals to discover a prospect’s wants and needs and address them as an (actual) conversation takes place and progresses.

It also offers a great opportunity to build rapport and trust.

In his iconic book “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” author Dale Carnegie emphasizes the incredible value of questions. He talks about the importance of being genuinely interested in other people, of being a good listener, and of talking in terms of the other person’s interests.

All of those rapport-building steps can be accomplished by asking GREAT questions!

But well beyond their ability to create rapport, thoughtfully asked questions are powerful control and influence tools. Think about it…

The person asking the questions effectively controls the conversation and can move it in the direction he or she wants it to go.

Strategic questioning is a combination of art and science, a Jedi-like skill that capitalizes on most people’s innate desire to talk about what’s important to THEM. It takes advantage of the simple fact that many of us require little if any external prodding to tell our “story.”

Fact is, we all know or have encountered people who without being asked can endlessly prattle on about every detail of their personal and professional lives. Anyone who’s had to listen to one of these runaway dissertations can attest to how mind-numbing an experience they can be!    

The good news is that the right questions asked in the right sequence at the right time can usually prevent or rein in these kinds of long-winded soliloquies and allow YOU to take charge of the conversation.

The key words in that last sentence, by the way, are “the right questions.”

Don’t think for a minute I’m advocating you shower people with a barrage of irrelevant, made-up-on-the-spot questions in the hopes that you’ll be able to assume control of the interaction. I’m not, and you won’t.

In order for this approach to work, you have to be equipped with at least a few “go-to” questions – questions that’ll help you determine if or why a prospect is worth talking to in the first place.

This isn’t about being rude; it’s about uncovering problems, issues and/or concerns you can actually help them solve. Once you’ve determined that you can, the conversation can be moved forward with additional questions asked at the appropriate time.   

What’s particularly fascinating about this technique is that the person you’re discreetly “interrogating” not only won’t be aware you’re using it, they’ll frequently come away with the impression that you’re an absolutely brilliant conversationalist. Even though THEY still did most of the talking!

The difference this time, however, is they talked about the things you wanted them to talk about based on the questions you asked. Hardly an undesirable outcome and one I’m sure you’d be okay with, wouldn’t you?

So here’s the wrap-up…

When properly used, this highly intuitive, game-changing approach can 1) create near immediate rapport with prospects and 2) result in more of those prospects becoming customers in the long run.

Give it a try the next time you first encounter someone who shows an interest in your product or service and watch what happens. You might be (pleasantly) surprised!