MoneyWatch

Sales Questions: How to Ask the Tough Ones

By Geoffrey James

Updated on: March 17, 2010 / 2:18 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

The "weakest link" in the sales cycle for Sales Machine reader "Klusewski" is:

Asking the tough questions- getting to yes or no- not letting things stay in that indeterminate comfortable state but either moving them forward or ending them

MY ADVICE:
This is a common problem. There are many "tough" questions that need to be asked, but the ones that are hardest to ask are variations of the following two archetypes:

Are you really a qualified customer?
Are you really going to buy from me?

The reason you're not asking these questions is that you're being controlled by two very common human emotions:

Hope. As long as you don't ask the tough questions, you can hope (i.e. pretend) that the engagement will end with a sale. Your imagination creates a vision of yourself writing the order and getting the commission and that vision is so wonderful that you're afraid to put it at risk by asking any question that could result in a "NO!"
Fear. As long as you don't ask the tough questions, you don't have to face the implications of a "NO." You're afraid that, despite all your efforts, the prospect doesn't like you enough to buy from you, or you're afraid that you'll find out that you've been wasting your time all along, or you're afraid that you're going to get chewed out by your sales manager, etc.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to fix this problem, without making major changes to your emotional and mental framework.

The trick is to ask the tough questions early in the sales cycle, before you've invested much mental energy in the opportunity. That way, you're much less likely to feel badly if you're "rejected" and much less likely to build imaginary scenarios of winning the deal that might cloud your judgment.

The first type of question ("Are you really a qualified customer?") is best asked in your first or second conversation with a customer. To do this, I recommend you use the structured approach in the post:

The Ultimate Prospect Qualification Tool

The second type of question is a bit more complicated, because the prospect doesn't really know -- at the beginning of the sales cycle -- whether or not he's going to buy from you. However, you CAN start testing for green lights, by constantly checking to see if the conversation is moving in the right direction.

To learn this technique, read the following post:

How to Close a Sale in 6 Easy Steps

Note: the question above came from the recent post "Free Coaching: Accelerate Your Career" asked Sales Machine readers to identify the weakest link in their sales skill set.