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Twelve Pointers on Questioning Techniques

by Tom Hopkins    

1.  You ask questions to gain and maintain control.

2.  You ask questions to indicate the broad areas they are interested in where you might be of service, and then you ask more questions to isolate the narrow area that is your best opportunity to serve them, and then you ask more questions to pinpoint the exact item you can provide or the specific service you can render.

3.  You ask questions to get the minor yeses that will start the stream of minor agreements that will swell into the major river of acceptance of your proposition.

4.  You ask questions to arouse and direct their emotions toward the purchase.

5.  You ask questions to isolate objections.  Only in rare cases will a qualified and properly handled prospect voice all the standard objections to your offering.  Only a few objections will occur to, or be important to an individual prospect.  Knowing that, the Champion seeks them out with eagerness instead of avoiding them with fear.

6.  You ask questions to answer objections.  Unquestionably, the finest way to answer an objection is to porcupine a question that, when the client answers it, affirms that the objection is in reality of no consequence--or even is an advantage to the client.

7.  You ask questions to determine the benefits that the prospect will buy.  Benefits.  Yes, that's right, benefits.  People don't really buy products and services, they buy the benefits they expect to receive by owning those products or services.

8.  You ask questions to acknowledge a fact.  If you say it, they can doubt you.  If they say it, it's true.

9.  You ask questions that will confirm that they are going ahead and you should now go on to the next step in our selling sequence.

10.  You ask questions that involve them in ownership decisions and thoughts about your offering.

11.  You ask questions to help you clients rationalize decisions that they want to make.  You do that because you want them to make that decision, too.  Aren't we all looking for someone to tell us that we need that electronic marvel?

12.  You ask questions that close them on the purchase.  All the closes depend on your question-asking ability for their potency.  Don't make the mistake of concentrating solely on what you're going to tell them.  Don't overlook the vital importance of asking the right questions, of varying our methods to fit their answers.


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