You always hear that listening is more important than talking in sales, but what are you listening to? It could be possible that you are listening to your prospect go on and on about stuff that will not move the deal forward. One of the responsibilities you have is to direct the conversations. No, don’t talk their ear off, but ask questions that get you the answers you need to know. Here is a link to Just Sell another sales tool website and I just signed up for their newsletters. the site came as a recommendation to me by a good friend and an old VP of sales that I used to report to when I first started this career. I figure if he’s all fired up about this site and the newsletters that they put out, then I must be missing something and I signed right up.

You may also want to check out a post from Dig It! a sales site that has a similar topic called 5 tips for more effective questions.

“We all know we should ask questions. But the effort is wasted if they’re not asked in the right way, or if you don’t listen to the answers,”

Facilitate the sale by gathering information, gaining rapport and qualifying the deal by asking the best questions possible. Here are some qualifying questions as an example.

Qualifying questions

• What do you see as the next action steps?
• What is your timeline for implementing/ purchasing this type of service/ product?
• What’s changed since we last talked?
• What concerns do you have?

There may be a moment of pause when you ask open ended questions, don’t feel like you need to fill the space. Just wait for their answer, they will fill the gap. The idea is to get them talking and not just answering ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Open ended questions are the way to make that happen.