There are many reasons a salesperson fails at closing sales. Too often, salespeople fail simply because they didn’t muster the courage required at the beginning of the sales discussion. When they are prospecting, they aren’t prepared to ask the right questions, and they aren’t prepared when their prospect asks them questions they didn’t expect.
Closing Sales Begins with Asking the Right Questions
Salespeople must ask questions in the initial sales interview for the following reasons:
- If salespeople ask questions, their prospect will talk.
- If salespeople don’t ask questions, the prospect will ask them questions.
- If the prospect asks questions, the salesperson starts talking.
- If the salesperson starts talking, the prospect will have all of the salesperson’s information.
- If the prospect has all of that information and hasn’t paid for any of it, then they don’t need the salesperson.
- If the prospect doesn’t need the salesperson, then the company won’t get paid.
- The prospect can use that information with their current provider.
- That’s a good deal for the prospect and a bad deal for the salesperson.
Those are all just logistics. The real reason is that preparation allows a salesperson to more naturally ask discovery questions to help a prospect uncover whether a problem they have needs to be fixed.
To understand what is going on, sales leaders should be reviewing sales calls. What is the first thing your salesperson does after saying hello? They should be prepared to ask a question. This question should lead to another question and then another question that will tell them if their prospect has a problem and needs their products or services. Closing sales begins with better opening questions.
Use Sales Discovery Questions and Listen to the Answers
Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. Instead of asking questions and listening for answers, salespeople may be busy talking about their product or company. Or they may be “listening” to a prospect answer their question but thinking about what they will say next. In other words, they are either boring the prospect or missing half of what the prospect is saying. This is why they are not closing sales.
Truly effective salespeople master the art of really listening and are comfortable asking probing questions that will help them uncover all the problems. They make statements and ask questions like:
- Tell me more about that.
- Why is that important?
- How long has this been a problem?
- What have you done in the past to fix the problem?
- What will it cost you if you don’t fix this problem?
- What has your current provider done to help you with this?
Qualify Prospects with a Post-Call Debrief
Important sales meetings and prospects warrant completing a Post-Call Debrief form. Salespeople can use it as a roadmap to help them focus on where they are going with a prospect. They should use it to construct their next questions so that the prospect will tell them what they need to know. Salespeople can use these qualifying steps to guide the meeting and fully discover whether they have a real prospect.
Help your salespeople ask the right questions and improve at closing sales.
Post-Call Debrief Checklist
Download our Brand-New Planning eBook!
