If you want to learn about your client and the person with whom you are meeting, open ended questions are best because they provide the person with the opportunity to answer as they see fit. Closed ended questions can help provide clarity of the client’s thinking or feeling definitively about a specific item at any given time. They can be used to get to a quick no, if it appears that the client is not inclined to buy.

Implication questions help paint a scenario of what is likely to happen if a client fails to make a decision ,take action, or do something different. It highlights the risk of staying the same. One of the biggest threats to a successful sale is not competition, it is that their prospect chooses to do nothing.

Prospects are always weighing the benefits or payoffs of a decision against the risks of the decision. They will put more weight on the risk of failure, than the benefits of success.

Most sales people spend their time appealing to the top of the iceberg – the features and benefits of their product or service solution they are providing, than to the bottom of the iceberg, the feelings and emotions of the prospect that is the bigger driver in the decision making process. Sales people would do well to spend more time uncovering obstacles and building trust, than on features and benefits.

Sometimes clients do not realize the risk of not doing something. Sometimes they do and are not willing to take the risk or put the effort in that doing something would require.

There are three elements of trust. Do you trust my character – honesty and integrity? Do you trust my capacity and competence to deliver what I promise in my area of expertise? Do you trust that there is a good fit between me and my company and the buyer and his/her company?

Sales people need to be able to identify what they need to be asking and when they need to ask it.

Executive summit, Bucks County 2018