If you had to name the single sales skill or ability that’s more important than any other — regardless of what kind of selling you do — what would it be?
Would it be prospecting? Speaking, demoing, or presenting well? Networking? Building rapport? Establishing trust? Listening? Knowing your products? Handling objections? Closing deals? Knowing your industry and your market? Knowing your competitors?
Yes, they’re all strong candidates. But in my opinion, the most valuable sales skill doesn’t even appear in that list.
It’s the ability to ask powerful and effective questions. I think it’s the most valuable selling skill for most of us because it’s fundamental to nearly all others.
This article will share 23 valuable uses of questions, at least 18 of which you may never have thought about.
Becoming a Connoisseur of Questions
I first came to appreciate the value of questions during 12 years of early religious education. By my eighth year, I had learned that I could safely resist power and authority by asking hard questions — provided I chose my words and used the right tone of voice.
The priests in my school would have smacked me across the room for expressing the same ideas as statements.
Lessons from Journalism and Law
I went to journalism school after the Watergate investigation in the early 70s. That long national drama — and the Senate hearings at center stage — provided a priceless education in the power of asking effective questions.
I later learned the importance of asking the right questions to tease a solid story or interview out of an otherwise colorless topic. A bad question can end an interview or destroy a story in seconds. Failure to ask the right questions can change a story dramatically.
Over years of cocktails and dinner with the many lawyers in my family, I’ve also learned the importance of preparing your questions carefully — and avoiding bad ones – during pretrial discovery (interrogatories and depositions) and throughout the tortuous process of litigation.
We’ve all seen many great courtroom dramas where the outcome hinges on a witness’s response to a well-asked question.
Financial Rewards Fan an Interest into a Passion
Finally, I started putting this insight to work in selling, where it really paid off for my family and me. What began as an interest became a source of higher income, and then a passion.
Encouraged by strong financial incentives to refine the power of my questions, I’ve developed the habit of writing down the best ones I see in print or hear from day to day.
The best inspiration often comes from sources outside of selling — law, medicine, journalism, entertainment, philosophy, negotiations, education, and parenting, to name a few.
How Many Ways Can You Use Questions in Selling?
When I had small teams of sales people reporting to me, I used to encourage them to sharpen their skill in asking questions. For starters, I’d ask them to list all the different ways they could think of to use questions in their selling.
Most listed four to six. No one ever came up with more than eight. How many can you think of?
An effective and powerful question can…
- engage a prospect’s mind when he’s initially thinking about something else
- lead a prospect to focus on the topics you want him to
- force a prospect toward a logical conclusion he may be reluctant to make
- uncover information that’s useful to you or your prospect
- reveal your prospect’s goals, wants, emotions, problems, obstacles, motivations, alternatives, etc.
- interrupt the flow of thought to or avoid or delay addressing a topic
- redirect the flow of a thought process or a conversation
- qualify a prospect’s ability to make a decision, pay for your offering, etc.
- introduce an idea or a tough or controversial subject without raising objections and without committing to taking a position on it
- open or invite two-way communication rather than a one-way flow of information
- seek feedback, solicit responses or test reactions
- identify decision criteria, decision makers, timelines, urgency, alternatives under consideration, etc.
- display consideration, empathy, courtesy or respect for the other person’s opinions and circumstances
- reinforce your prospect’s feeling of control by asking what he wants to do next
- maintain interest by keeping us focused on topics that are of real value to the prospect
- deflect or delay topics you need time to think about or that you’d rather not talk about at the moment
- clarify the prospect’s thinking, either for you or for himself
- engender trust and confidence
- demonstrate knowledge or expertise
- identify or diagnose problems
- threaten or intimidate someone without technically making a threat or an intimidating statement
- highlight inconsistencies in a prospect’s thinking
- reassure a prospect that he is making or has made a good decision.
Okay. I can hear you saying some of these overlap a little. Point taken.
The list is intended to open your mind to consider more possibilities. It’s not competing to go into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Future articles will alert you to almost as many ways you can hurt yourself by asking questions badly.
I’ll also help you refine the different kinds of questions you can ask, and I’ll suggest dozens of ways you can put them to work.
Stay fresh.
– Scott Silverback
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