How to Ask the Right Questions in Sales

When you are selling yourself or a product, you need to ask the right questions.  The goal is to not talk the whole time, but to guide the questions in a way that they reveal the right information to you with little effort.  You need to be able to prepare yourself by doing your homework before the meeting.  You will need to know What you are going to ask, Why you are asking the question, and How you will ask the question.  The point of this is that any question you ask can be tweaked slightly to get more information from your prospect.  As a sales professional, you need to uncover the prospects needs before you can give a proper presentation.

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Closing: Make the Sale or Don't

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Closing is the second most important step in the sales process behind Finding Needs, and it can lead to making the sale or losing it.  Closing can mean a couple of different things depending on whether you are trying to make a large sale or a small sale.  During a small sale, a successful close will always lead to making the sale and having them sign on the dotted line.  For a large sale, mostly business to business types where there are multiple people involved in the decision making process, you will most likely not be able to close that day.  When this is the case DO NOT USE TYPICAL CLOSING TECHNIQUES!  Doing this will offend your prospect and make them think that you are too pushy.  Remember:  in sales you need to form a relationship with the buyer, and being seen as pushy or uncaring of their needs will make them not want to form that relationship.

SPIN Selling: It's not what you think it is.

When I first heard the term "SPIN selling" I thought it was referring to the stereotype of a salesperson who twists the truth to make a sale.  I could not have been more wrong.  This refers to the right types of questions to ask when you are in the second step of the 5 step sales process:  uncovering needs.  Each letter stands for a different type of question you should ask:  situational, problem, implication, and needs-payoff.  If you ask the right types of questions, the customer will come to the conclusion on their own that what you have to offer will do them a lot of good.  Here are the types of questions to ask in order:

Follow These Steps to Make a Sale

As a salesperson, you should be able to control a conversation.  This does not mean that you should dominate the conversation, but you should be able to steer the direction in a way that will give you a better chance of making the sale.  Many salespeople think that they need to just spit out a bunch of features and the customer will see how great their product is and buy it, these people are peddlers.  A true sales professional takes as much time listening to their customer as they do talking, and there are certain steps you should take to present yourself and your product in a way that will make your customer want to buy.