We used to play a game at my old company called “the question game.” Two opponents would stand up in front of the rest of the sales team and take turns asking each other questions. The first person to give an answer loses.
The best strategy was to come up with a question so cunning that your opponent was forced to answer (because there’s a natural human reaction to answering a good question).
On a sales call, whoever is asking the questions is controlling the conversation.
The opposite of asking questions is overtalking. I hear this most often during the closing part of a call. When it comes time to ask for the close, an amateur sales rep will start rambling.
They’ll overtalk about product features, client testimonials, and on and on with information that they think is helping them to convince the client and close the sale.
In reality, all this extra information is just confusing the client and making the sale more complicated. The more complicated a sale becomes, the more likely you are to get the “Let me think about it” objection.
A sales pro, on the other hand, will have already made all his statements while selling value earlier in the call. When it comes time to ask for the close, he will be concise and direct.
Even when he gets an objection, he will ask a question in response. He will get the client talking to find out their true objection, and then when the time comes (after listening to the client talk), he will make a short statement to resell value, and then ask for the close again.
When your client does ask you questions, keep your answers short and to the point.
But never answer an unasked question. I’m going to type that out again because it’s important: Never answer an unasked question. One of my favorite sales bosses used to tell me this over and over.
It’s bad enough to overtalk when the client has asked you a question and you’re rambling on, when a short, concise answer would have been sufficient. It’s even worse when you’re going on with an answer that the client didn’t even ask for.
Here are the key takeaways:
- Ask intelligent questions and listen.
- Keep your answers short and to the point.
- Never answer unasked questions.