5 Types of Questions to Transform Your Sales Results

Effective questioning techniques stand as the cornerstone of successful sales, with five distinct question categories guiding salespeople through the entire sales process. Mastering these question types enables you to work only with ideal clients while providing solutions that genuinely address their needs.

• Discovery and qualification questions help determine whether a prospect is a good fit for your offering
• Understanding pain points through exploratory questions reveals the urgency and impact of their challenges
• Solution alignment questions clarify what an ideal solution looks like to your prospect
• Decision-making process questions maintain momentum and ensure you're talking to the right people
• Relationship-building questions can strengthen connections but should be used selectively based on personality types
• Not everyone you meet will be a client – qualifying people out is as important as qualifying people in
• Different personality types approach decisions differently – some want immediate decisions while others need time

Please remember to like and subscribe, and take a look at my sales training course. There's a free webinar available at www.salescraft.training where you can learn more techniques to apply straight away.

Welcome to the podcast!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Previous Podcast Recap
• 1:46 Discovery and Qualification Questions Explained
• 6:48 Exploring Pain Points and Needs
• 8:32 Solution Alignment Questions
• 11:32 Decision-Making Process Questions
• 15:38 Relationship Building Questions
• 16:58 Recap and Course Information

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hello again and welcome to another podcast. Now, one of the most listened to podcasts that I put out in the last few months focused on questions three questions that you can ask that will transform your sales results. So if you haven't listened to that one, I do recommend that you have a listen, because I do go into some specific questions that can really help you change your results. And I focused on three areas where I know a lot of salespeople tend to get it wrong. And the thing about questioning questioning is one of the most powerful tools you have at your fingertips, as it were, as a salesperson, whether you're a career salesperson, if you're doing it because you run your own business and you're maybe having to do it temporarily, but your questioning is really important. So in this podcast, what I'm going to talk about are the five types of question. Now you can really split questions any way you like, so I've just semi-arbitrarily picked five different categories, but I think they do cover off the important categories that you need to be thinking of at different points in the sale, and I'll also give you a few examples. So you've got something to go away and apply, because the point of this and also of the sales training course that I offer is to make sure that you go away with things that you can implement straight away, and I think that's the most important thing. This podcast, the course, everything I do. They're not about giving you theory. They're about giving you things you can apply straight away. So let's get going. Before I do, please remember to like and subscribe. Most people who listen don't subscribe, and I really wish you would, because that way you do get the latest podcast. It helps me with my visibility and hopefully everybody wins.

Speaker 1: 1:56

So the first category of question I'm going to talk about is what I'm calling discovery and qualification questions. So the idea of these these are the very first questions you will ask when you meet a potential client, and the reason I say potential is that not everyone you meet will be a client, and this in itself is one of the mistakes that I've seen a lot of salespeople make. They try to sell to everybody and, in fact, one of the most important things you can do is to come up with questions that will allow you to exclude the people who you know will not buy from you, and I've spoken about this before. The reason is very simple that you have a limited amount of time, you really need to spend most of that time with the people who are most likely to buy from you. If you start chasing anybody, the chances are that you will spend most of your time with people who will never buy from you. So that's one mindset thing to just get your head around. As I said, a lot of people think they have to sell to everybody. You do not. You need to know who your ideal client is. I've spoken about that before. There's detailed stuff in the course, but you need to know those people. So the idea behind discovery and qualification questions is really to help you decide how good a fit this prospect is for what you're selling. And obviously what you want to do is get a really good fit with the people you spend your time with.

Speaker 1: 3:26

So the kind of questions that you are asking about are just to clarify, first of all, what prompted them to start looking for a solution now. If they are somebody who's approached you either through an ad or directly, however it might be, so it might be a question like what prompted you to look into this right now. Another great question is to ask what are the challenges that you're currently facing with? Whatever the problem is that you're solving, and obviously, if they're talking to you, they're talking to you because they want you to solve a problem for them. So you need to be clear exactly what that problem is, because they may think that you can solve their problem. In reality, they might have the wrong problem, and this is again you need to get very clear on what you do as a salesperson. Is you become a problem solver? So you really need to get very clear on that.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Another great one is to find out how they're currently finding a solution for whatever the problem is. So they may already have something or they may have nothing. So a good question to ask is how you're currently handling this or how you're currently solving this problem. Now another great question is to ask what would solving this problem mean for you or your organization or whatever it is? But what you're doing there is not only are you trying to get a good handle on the details of the problem they're trying to solve, but also what the outcome is that they're looking for. So again, they're not coming to you because they want your product, your solution. Usually they're coming to you because they want an outcome.

Speaker 1: 5:11

Other great ones are just to find out who else is involved in the decision-making process. You really need to be clear on that. You need to understand timeline so when do they need the solution implemented and also budget. So don't be afraid to ask about budget. What kind of budget do you have aside? They'll either tell you or they won't. If they don't, you need to get that budget question in there. You need to get them aware of the ballpark of your solution as quickly as you can, because if they don't have the budget most of the time, you probably don't want to work with them. Now. It may well be that budget will become available later. So this might be more of a planning discussion and that's fine.

Speaker 1: 5:48

But you need to get very clear about where they are in the sales process. So that's the discovery, the qualification side, and I would recommend that you put together a short list of questions maybe five or six along the lines that I've just given you that apply to whatever it is that you're selling and you really want to be looking. You really want to identify how close a fit are they, how close are they to your ideal client, and also have one or two questions in there that are designed to get rid of them if they are not a good fit. So, remember, you need to be qualifying people out as much as you need to be qualifying people in, people out as much as you need to be qualifying people in. Okay. So the next category is simply understanding the pain. So it's getting clear on the need. So we could think of it as the exploration of the need, and the point of this is to start getting deeper into what their problem is. Start getting deeper into what their problem is and also how urgent the problem is.

Speaker 1: 6:58

So the kind of questions that you can use here and again, it's about finding the questions that are appropriate for what you do and what you feel comfortable with asking. Now, you do need to ask questions. So if you're not comfortable asking any, you've got a serious problem. So you do need to ask questions. So if you're not comfortable asking any, you've got a serious problem. So you do need to ask them. But find questions that fit you, your personality, that you're comfortable with. Remember, this is conversation. This is not closing. You're not trying to close a deal. You're having a conversation with these people.

Speaker 1: 7:24

So just some examples how does this problem affect you day-to-day? What's the day-to-day impact of this problem. What happens if the issue isn't resolved? If the problem isn't solved, what's been stopping you from finding a solution up until now? And what does a successful solution look like? Or how do you measure success? The more specific you can get on that question, the better. So it's really good if you're talking about being clear on what a successful solution is. Get as specific as you can, because that gives you very clear boxes to tick if you like. Yeah, we can do this. Yes, we can do this. Yes, we can do this. So there you go, okay.

Speaker 1: 8:16

The next thing is to look at how you tailor your solution to their needs. This is about we can call it solution alignment, but it's about getting clear on what they are looking for. So it's kind of building on what we did in the last category and it's about getting as clear as you can about what a solution looks like to them, because it's always possible to have misunderstandings, miscommunications, and this is where you get into objections and losing sales because somewhere, somewhere along the way, you didn't ask the right questions. So the kind of questions to ask here what would the ideal solution look like? What features of the solution are most important to you? This is again important, because you really want to have a top three or four. If there are that many, they need to rank them four. If there are that many, they need to rank them. What are the top three or four aspects? Features, specific boxes to tick from the solution, because you need to know whether or not you can tick them If they have, let's say, seven specific features that they need or seven specific aspects to the solution that they need, and you can only do three of them. Well, where do those three sit in the seven? Are they the top three? Are they the bottom three? Obviously, that will have a different impact on how likely you are to be able to close an order and provide a good solution.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Again, we're about providing good solutions. This is about win-win selling. This is not about making a quick buck and running, because that will always backfire on you. So don't do that. If there is a change or if you're offering a different solution, you can ask them what their concerns are about making a change, moving to something different. Maybe you're a new supplier for them, maybe it's a new way of working for them. Whatever it is, what are the concerns they have? Because again in there you might find particular aspects, smaller aspects of your solution that perhaps you wouldn't normally think about yourself, but they can actually be quite key in just swinging the deal your way. So get clear about their concerns and make sure you can meet them. And have they looked at other solutions? And, if they have, what did they like or dislike?

Speaker 1: 10:40

Now, a really good trick here if they're looking at other solutions, ask them what they like about those solutions and sometimes not always, but sometimes they'll start telling you what's wrong with them. If they don't tell you what they dislike about them, then I would recommend that you ask the question was there anything about this solution that you didn't like, that didn't meet your requirements? Because you're getting clear about what the turnoffs are, where the sort of red lights are for them. That will stop the sale, okay. The next thing is more when we're getting into the closing side. But again, I recommend that you treat this conversation, all of these questions is just conversation. These are not hard closes. What you're doing is you're just having a conversation with them about the, about their requirement, what, what they need and where they are in the process, all that kind of thing. So it's simply a conversation and this group of questions allow you to get clearer on their decision-making process, their next steps.

Speaker 1: 11:52

Maybe there need to be other people involved, and that is really important to know, because you don't want to be just spending all of your time with one person who, it turns out, isn't actually the decision maker and maybe has no authority to go ahead and complete the purchase. So it's absolutely vital that you are clear on who those people are. So, to get clear on the decision making process and next steps, the kind of questions to ask here are what would need to happen for you to move forward with us? What do we need to do? So? It might be a demonstration, it might be a proposal, it might be a loan of something, it might be a trial period on a solution, but what are the things they're looking for? What do they need to see in order to feel comfortable to move forward?

Speaker 1: 12:35

Another good one is is how do you typically make decisions like this? So that's quite nice, because how do you typically make decisions like this? Well, that's more of a generalized question. You're stepping back from the specific sale, but you're getting really a step back to understand the decision-making process, but you're not particularly tying down to this sale. You can always qualify that afterwards, and does this apply to this particular sale? Are there any differences? I need to be aware of Anybody else. I need to be in contact with All of these kind of questions.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Some people and this is why I talk about DISC in the sales program and I'm not going to do that here, but you will find that there are certain people who want to get it done. They just want to make a decision straight away and move on. Other people definitely need time. If you try and close them those particular type of people what they'll do? They'll feel pressured. They'll feel if they ask for time, there may be a risk of confrontation with you and they're confrontation averse and they will basically say what they think you won't hear and then you won't hear from them again. So it is really important that you understand if the person you're talking to is someone who likes to just get it done, make a decision quickly, or are they somebody who genuinely needs to think about it? So a good question to ask here is when should we follow up to discuss the next steps? Or really an alternative to that would be to get clear on what the next steps are and then start asking okay, if the next step is, for example, a demonstration, okay, how do we, or when should we begin to get the demonstration set up? When would you like to have that? Keep it moving, keep the momentum going, work with them, respect them, but get very clear, be clear on their process. If there is an objection, which is generally a concern, an objection as I've spoken about in other podcasts means that you've missed something, and often an objection is not because they're saying no, but they have a concern. So a great thing to try and get that out of the way, because you may or may not be able to resolve it immediately. It's simply to ask if we can address this concern, whatever it is. Would you then be ready to move forward? So that's kind of getting a yes, and one of the good things to do in sales is to get people saying yes to you as often as possible.

Speaker 1: 15:21

Now there's another group of questions that go beyond the direct sale. It's about relationship building. They are more effective with some people than others and that's covered in the disc stuff that I talk about, and so some people would like them. They'll actually feel that you genuinely have an interest in them and you want to help them, others will get a bit irritated by them. So I'm not going to go into who's who, because there isn't time in the podcast. It's all in the course, obviously. But these kind of things are designed to build rapport and with certain people that's really important. Some people don't care, other people it is. So if you're building rapport and this is more the chit-chatty stuff and if you're anything like me, you probably don't put too much importance on that or I never used to. But now that I recognize that for some people it's actually really important, I'm much more aware of when to use them. So the kind of questions are simply things like what got you into your current role? How did you get into that? That sort of thing. What's been your proudest achievement this year? That's quite a nice one. What do you enjoy most about your work? Those kinds of things. As I say, some people will really value that interaction. Other people will be incredibly irritated by it. So it is important to be careful how you're using that.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Okay, so I'm just going to quickly recap the categories. I'm going to recap all the questions, but just to give you a recap. So the first group of questions were the discovery, the qualification questions. Now these are really important. In many ways, these are the most important questions you're going to ask, because you need to make sure that the people that you go with beyond this stage are people where you have a very good chance, and by that I mean probably 75% or better probability of selling, and certainly anybody who's less than 50. I would generally recommend certainly not continuing with at that point. Maybe they may be the kind of people that you just keep in contact with and that there's a particular point when they will buy, but the discovery and qualification questions are really important because you need to get rid of the people who are not going to buy from you. You need to be spending time with the people who will.

Speaker 1: 17:47

We then moved further. We built on those qualification questions with the exploration, looking at what they need, so getting clearer on the need and also some of the pain, getting clear on what the pain points are, because we do provide solutions and generally a solution is there because there's pain solutions and generally a solution is there because there's pain, and these questions are designed to get very clear on what the pain points are for the client. And again, the good thing about understanding pain points is that you can use them later in the process when you're closing um the. The third category was really to get clear on the solution. So these are much more solution. Alignment is a phrase, but it's about getting really specific as specific as you can on what that solution looks like and again getting clear on likes and dislikes from other solutions that they might be looking at. Then the fourth category was getting clear on the decision-making process and what the next steps are. It's really important to keep the process moving, so you need to know what the next steps are. And then, finally, the fifth group are the relationship-building questions.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Now, I believe it's very important to build good relationships with clients. However, you do need to understand the best way to do that, and that again I would go back to DISC and there are certain ways of identifying the type of client you're dealing with. And once you know that, you know whether or not the relationship or you know how important the relationship stuff is. Okay, so that is this podcast, and I hope there's some useful things in there that you can take away and apply straight away. As I say, please remember to like and subscribe. Please take a look at the course. There's a link in the description and there's also a free webinar you can do, which I have access to from my website, which is wwwsalescrafttraining, and that webinar takes you through in a bit more detail. Just some things you can apply straight away. Okay, I hope you've enjoyed that. Speak to you on the next podcast. Bye for now.