7-Day Crash Sales Elite

Chapter 17 The Fourth Day (4)
By asking questions, you can draw the customer's attention to important matters that are beneficial to you; by asking, you can understand the customer's objection and try to eliminate it; by asking questions, you can pull back the lost conversation motivation or theme.Through some deliberately designed questions, you can give the opportunity to change the direction of the conversation, and it is easier to find out what the customer's needs are.

It can be seen that questioning is an effective tool to promote and facilitate transactions, and it determines the direction of conversation, debate or argument.

Ask customers skillfully at the first time

In the sales process, there are many benefits to ingeniously asking customers. It can not only grasp the needs of customers and maintain a good relationship with customers, but also can control and control the process of transactions and reduce misunderstandings with customers.

When a salesperson visits a customer, never ask the customer's needs directly. That will only make the way narrower and narrower, making the scope of the customer's needs smaller and smaller, and the questions more and more specific, and then it will become less and less clear. topic.

For example, when a customer first talks about a certain demand, some salesperson immediately follows his own steps and introduces the functions of the product to the customer step by step.A mature salesperson is just the opposite. He often expands the consequences of the problem and the needs of customers by asking questions, so the topic will become more and more open.

Cao Liangliang, a salesperson of an Internet company, went to visit a client who made a website.In fact, this is a very simple job, but Cao Liangliang talked with the customer for more than two hours, starting from this problem and talking about it. Finally, Cao Liangliang learned that all the computers at the customer's place need to be installed with application software.

Cao Liangliang asked the customer, more than 90% of your computers have installed these application software, which is a good thing. In China, the standards you have reached are already very high, but why not install them on 100% of them?
The customer replied: "We belong to the NASDAQ company in the United States, and we must abide by the terms and conditions of the company's headquarters. For this reason, we spent a lot of money to hire an audit company to help us do the audit. Last year, we barely passed. This year, the requirements are even stricter."

Hearing this, Cao Liangliang knew what the customer needed, so he immediately began to expand his needs, and raised six aspects of demand questions, and continued to expand on these six aspects, listed many specific issues, discussed with the customer, and made Finally, Cao Liangliang sells all products related to customer needs.

Cao Liangliang will eventually be able to sell more products. The premise is that the customer's needs are very small, and he must ask questions openly. He should first obtain key information from the customer.

When the salesperson cannot make an accurate judgment on the customer's intention, it is necessary to obtain the customer's final thought at this time.

A salesperson of baby products visits a customer whose child is not at home, and the hostess is young, and the age of the customer makes it impossible for her to determine whether she is a young mother. In this case, it would be helpful to ask abruptly, "How old is the baby? "It is easy to cause a joke.The salesperson cleverly asked the question in a selective way, "Do you want to use it for your baby or give it away?"

The above salesman’s questioning method not only avoids many detours, but also can directly understand the customer’s real purchase intention, and then she can selectively recommend products.It is worth noting that in sales practice, these methods need to be flexible, and cannot be used dogmatically!
If the salesperson does not pay attention to the method and method during the questioning process, not only will the expected purpose not be achieved, but it may also cause strong resentment from the customer, which will lead to deterioration of the relationship with the customer, or even break up.Therefore, salespeople need to master the following points when asking questions to customers.

[1] Questions must be to the point.

In the sales process, any questions from the salesperson must be closely focused on specific goals.Therefore, every word and deed in the process of communicating with customers must be carried out purposefully, and never deviate from the most fundamental sales goal aimlessly.This requires the salesperson to gradually decompose the most fundamental sales target according to the actual situation before making an appointment with the customer, and then consider the specific way of asking questions according to the decomposed small goals.The questions formulated in this way can not only avoid wasting each other's time by talking about some boring topics, but also can achieve the goals at all levels step by step.

[2] Respect the customer and don't speak too bluntly.

"Am I clear?"

"Can you understand what I mean?"

"You still don't understand!"

Obviously, among the above three sentences, the first sentence is the best. It implies that if the customer does not understand what he means, it is the salesperson who did not explain clearly and it is the responsibility of the salesperson.The third sentence must be avoided in your sales process, because the customer will think that the salesperson is belittling and laughing at his IQ, which will only cause the customer's resentment and unnecessary disputes.

[3] Don't limit customers to answering questions.

Generally speaking, questions like the following will not limit the customer's answer:
"How can we meet your request?"

"How would your job change if you adopted this product?"

"What do you think are the advantages of this product that attract you the most?"

Salespersons should not limit the answers of customers to answer questions, but can completely let customers express their true thoughts around the topic of conversation according to their own interests.In this way, customers can feel natural and able to speak freely, which helps sales staff to understand more effective customer information based on customer conversations.At the same time, after customers feel free and speak freely, they usually feel relaxed and happy, which obviously helps the further communication and cooperation between the two parties.

Make good use of questions to find out the real thoughts of customers
A good question can change a transaction to a great extent. Those salesmen with first-class standards are often masters of asking questions, and they always pay special attention to the skills of asking questions during the sales process.

In the sales process, the salesperson must ensure that the customer understands the content clearly, otherwise it will cause unnecessary misunderstandings, which requires the salesperson to be good at using the skills of asking questions.

Salespeople only know how to ask questions skillfully. By constantly asking customers questions, they can understand the real needs of customers and ensure that customers understand what you are talking about.In order to be able to guide the conversation with the customer to the desired result.This is because the art of persuading customers does not lie in the fact that you come and go and express your opinions, but is hidden in the process of asking and answering!

Take a look at the following story:

In ancient Greek mythology, there was a Greek king who had a huge cavalry team, but there were no horseshoes at that time.Everyone knows that horseshoes have horseshoes, and the effect of combat will be enhanced, but the king's cavalry has always been uneasy about horseshoes.

So, a blacksmith wanted to close the deal, so he recommended to the king, "Your Majesty, are your cavalry the best cavalry in mainland Greece?"

The king said: "Of course, our cavalry is not invincible when charged!" When it comes to cavalry, the king is more and more happy.

Seeing this situation, the blacksmith asked a question: "So, when charging, will the horse step on the stone and cause the cavalry to fall?"

The king replied: "This will happen, and the horse's hoof will be useless after stepping on it, and both the cavalry and the horse will be lost."

"We are fighting the enemy. If there is unfavorable terrain and many cavalry have such a situation, what should we do?"

"If something happens during the charge of a large number of cavalry, it may affect the charge, and the damage of this charge to the entire battle may cause the entire battle to fail."

"Then the battle fails, what are the consequences of losing the war?"

"Our country will be seriously threatened, and if it fails for a long time, our country will perish."

"Therefore, the failure to shoe the horses is the death of the king."

When the king heard this, he came to his senses and ordered the blacksmith to shoe every horse.

The customer's objection may be multi-faceted, and he cannot immediately express his doubts clearly.At this time, the salesperson should correctly use the method of asking questions, find the crux of the problem, and then "prescribe the right medicine".The blacksmith above knew the specific situation of the customer in advance, so he raised his own questions according to the needs of the customer.

Questioning is a language expression method often used in the sales process. Through ingenious and appropriate questioning, first, the salesperson can find out the needs of customers, grasp the psychological state of customers, see through the motives and intentions of customers, inspire customers to think, encourage and Guide customers to speak; secondly, salespersons can accurately express their thoughts, convey information, explain feelings, doubts, concerns, hopes, etc.; thirdly, salespersons can break the silence in the negotiation process when there is a cold room or deadlock .

In the sales process, when asking customers questions, we should also pay attention to the way of asking questions:
[1] Questions should be staged.

When the salesperson asks a series of questions one after another, the customer may feel very uncomfortable.In this way, they may feel that they are not participating in a conversation, but being interrogated.Some customers will even have resistance because of this, deliberately not answering questions.Therefore, the salesperson should distribute the questions at different periods of the negotiation to avoid continuous questions.

If you can properly divide your questions, you can give customers plenty of time to answer, so as to participate in the conversation in a relaxed atmosphere.The main way to divide the question is to ask the question in a planned way without interrupting the customer's answer.

[2] The questions raised should be objective.

The main purpose of asking questions in the sales process should be to understand the real thoughts of customers, not to induce customers to make some kind of commitment or force them to accept their own views.For example, if a question is asked that has only one possible answer, and that answer clearly favors the salesperson, then the question is not objective.

For example: "Why do you think this is a great product?" or "In what ways do you think our product is better than the one you're using?"

Such questions try to encourage customers to answer in the affirmative, there is no negative answer, and they have obvious subjective tendencies, which can easily arouse customers' resentment.To take a step back, even if the desired answer is obtained, the salesperson cannot grasp the customer's true thoughts.

[3] Ask explicit questions.

If you want to make the questions asked easy for customers to understand and answer, it is necessary to avoid asking too complicated and lengthy questions.

Some salespeople like to combine several questions together to make the questioning more complicated.For example: "How often do you order and sell them all?"

It is difficult for customers to make a reasonable answer to the above question.Because they don't understand you are asking how often to order goods?Or are you asking how long it will take for the ordered goods to be sold out?
On top of that, there are some sales people who stretch out the questions very long.For example: "There are so many complicated reports to prepare and review, it is difficult for you to decide when to go to the exhibition to see our samples and technical materials?"

Such cumbersome questions can easily bore customers, and it is difficult for them to concentrate on listening to such questions carefully.Therefore, the question should be as simple and clear as possible, without dragging the water.

[4] Techniques of Proof-Type Questioning.

In many cases, customers are used to rejecting the products of the salesperson without thinking. Therefore, as a salesperson, you should consider this situation in advance and ask some questions accordingly to prompt the customer to give the opposite answer.

When customers answer negatively to these questions, it is tantamount to admitting that they have certain needs, and this needs urgently need sales staff to help them solve.

Master several basic ways of asking sales questions
If you can't probe out the real needs of customers through effective questioning, you will most likely not close the deal.The ability to ask questions in the sales process is directly proportional to your sales ability.As a telemarketer, you must try your best to improve your ability to ask customers key questions on the phone.

In the sales process, ask questions in the most basic way, in order to discover the customer's purchase intention and how to let them get the benefits they need from the purchased products, so as to provide them with the appropriate service according to the needs of customers, and promote the final result. deal.

Many salespeople do not realize the skill of asking questions, why?The reason is that they have never thought about how to help customers solve problems.All they think about is their own products, and what they think about is how to get customers to buy their products.Therefore, they don't know how to ask questions from the perspective of helping customers solve problems.

Generally speaking, the following are some basic ways of sales questions for reference by sales staff:
[1] Suggestive questions.

Sales staff should take the initiative to propose to customers the relevant benefits that can be obtained by purchasing related products, and give some good suggestions to stimulate customers' desire to buy.

When a stroller salesperson visited a customer, he asked his customer: "May I ask if you bought this stroller for a baby of a few months to sleep or for a baby of one or two years old to sit?" Do you want the child to ride a three-wheeled bicycle to be more stable, or let him practice the skills of riding a two-wheeled bicycle?" Just a short question can win the trust and recognition of customers, and can skillfully express the product's A variety of functions, thus leaving a good and deep impression on customers.

[2] Conversational questioning.

(End of this chapter)