If you have already done your home work (prospecting right), you would already know a lot about the person and the business of your prospect. Assuming, you are past the presentation cycle, and now on a hot seat of trying to over come the objections before you ask for the order.
It is not really the matter of asking more questions to getting big order. It is the matter of getting your prospect in the comfort zone where he says yes, and puts his pen on the dotted line. Here are some of the points you need to keep in mind:1) In almost every sales situation you enter into a phase of "probing questions" to allay the prospect fears, and motivating him to finally say YES;2) And remember, every question is a probing question that ends to leading the prospect agreeing with you, and helping him to make that big buying decision;3) Every question must end with a qualifying note;4) There is one more thing to these questions. Every question begins with empathetic statement, and ends at a BIG qualifying commitment, "If I got my boss to drop the price where you want it to be, took you and your honey to dinner every night, and had him come to shine your shoes right now, can we have the business NOW, Mr. Prospect?"
Hope you got the picture.
by
Kareem Soufi , Director, Strategy & Business Development , EF Education First
Situation questions will help the seller identify the client's needs, pain, motivation, current methods and budget.
Asking a lot of these is not always the right thing to do though, because the client might feel bored or interrogated and also, answers to these questions could be extracted from the discussion context without the need to directly ask them.
Situation Questions are the main tool for the sales pro to convert his raw solution into a real benefit that talks to customers' needs; i.e. selling a solution "as is" vs. selling an added value solution for the customer's challenges
Mr. Kareem Soufi is very right in mentioning that asking lot of questions the client might feel bored and interrogated.
After all it is very difficult to investigate a customer's problems (NEEDS) unless one understands the present situation.
Situation Questions reveal the basic facts about what's happening now and provide the background detail which lets one to proceed to the next step.
Skilled salespersons ask Situation Questions economically and obtain the required information using minimum number of questions.
It is important that the customer views Situation Questions as an attempt on our part for better understanding of the customers business as every individual loves to talk a lot about herself / himself and their business, not as a demand for information.
To achieve that perspective, some techniques are useful, such as:
Link the Situation Questions to a previous customer statement.
Link to a personal observation.
Situation Questions discussions are part of training. They are also called case studies. These questions or discussion studies provides tools for marketing personnel with ready made answers or guidelines to deal with customer to close the sales.
Hi
Situation questions definitely help
But the rider is , how well you have done your homework with the customer to understand his "as is status"
This would enable you to ask the right question and place the right solutions
SPIN Technique is always an integral part of Account management
