Page 77 - Training 2019

5. Don’t forget to listen to your client

The most experienced and successful salespeople admit that a huge part of their
work is about merely listening to customers.

And we don’t mean simply hearing words. You must learn to listen actively and
understand what your client has to say. Stay engaged for the whole conversation.
Your client will appreciate that.

Do not underestimate the meaning of listening. Otherwise, you will destroy the very
essence of open-ended questions.

6. Don’t offer a solution

You may be a great problem solver in life and have a piece of advice for any
situation. But when it comes to open-ended questions, you might need to forget
about this valuable quality of yours for a while.

You should target at learning about your client as much as possible and (maybe)
later offer them a solution.

Besides, if you ignore the impulse to advise at this stage, you might get a better
insight on how to help your clients. This will offer a good bonus to your sales.

Best open-ended sales questions

By this moment you should possess a clear idea of what open-ended questions are,
why you need those, how and when to refer to them. Let’s take a moment to talk
about top open-ended sales questions which will help you build trust with your
customers, get as much information about them as possible, and close the sale.

Queries about buying history:

1. What kind of experience did you enjoy when used this type of product?
2. Why did you decide to buy this particular item?
3. How did you buy this item?
4. What measures did you take to cope with these challenges (if any)?

Queries to define wants, goals, and barriers:

1. What are you most concerned about?
2. What results do you expect to see/ achieve?
3. What is the biggest obstacle on the way to reaching your goals?
4. Why are you so sure this is the right (wrong) time to change it?
5. What can help you go forward with the project?

SALES TRAINING – IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES 13
Updated - 24 June 2019