24 | TRAINING WORDS | Paul Owen Question time
Questions are the key to all successful sales conversations. It’s very hard to sell to someone who has stopped thinking because you’ve spent ten minutes telling them how great your company is. Paul Owen shares some top tips
their questions: people; business; and product or service. This month, I want to introduce you to the best four questioning techniques I have heard (all introduced to me by my fi rst training mentor, Matt Drought, Founder, Natural Training –
www.naturaltraining.com). Please remember: questions reveal your client, the person they are, the business they run, the concerns they have. The wider range of questions you have, the better equipped you are to sell well consistently. Here are my favourite three techniques.
L
Scale questions Example: On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is not at all important and 10 is very important, how important is it that you invest in this property by the end of the year? I almost guarantee that you’re now
groaning about this question. When is this one useful? Imagine this: ‘Yes, we are looking at this property investment and we are interested. You know, we’re thinking about it. Keep us posted.’ A comment like that gives you little
ast month, I highlighted the three areas on which successful salespeople focus
indication of how serious they are. I fi nd that a scale question at a time like this works a treat, giving more clarity (to you and, often, to the client too). When selling training, I ask Sales Directors how happy they are with the performance of their sales teams. ‘Oh, you know, they’re doing all right. Can’t complain. Could do better.’ There’s very little I can do with that sort of woolly answer but a mark out of ten gives clarity, focus and, usually, a gap into which I can sell (for the usual number given by Sales Directors, see end).
Two-part questions Example: John, I’d now like to ask you a question that comes in two parts…. What are you hoping to achieve when buying this property/ signing this partnership agreement with us and, secondly, why are those things important to you?
One of my favourites, this one.
It’s brilliant for making people kick back from their desks, stop reading their emails or checking pointless tweets and really engage in the conversation. ‘Wow, that’s a good question. Let me think….’ is a typical starting point for the answer.
Paul Owen was fi rst chief executive of the Association of International Property Professionals (AIPP), building the membership to 400+, creating its annual consumer guide and setting up the AIPP Awards. He now runs The Clear Path Company, specialists in sales recruitment and sales training, which this year launched ‘Let’s get Britain selling!’, a nationwide programme of free sales training for 16-24 year olds in the UK. Call: +44 (0)20 3004 9113
When clients are thinking, their brains are working. You can’t sell to a mind that’s elsewhere (must pick up milk on way home.. that new girl/ guy in accounts looks tasty….Mmm, a new governor for Bank of England, says BBC..) but you can sell, engage, excite a brain that’s working, that’s processing ideas and concepts. Make them work when you speak.
Yesterday questions Example: John, I’d like to take you back 2 years when you made your fi rst overseas property investment. What did you choose and why did you choose that particular investment? This one is a little bit of sales magic. (I know, you can’t yet see it but isn’t that the point of magic?). Here’s the secret. Typically in sales, we ask about today – ‘What are you looking to buy at the moment?’ – and
tomorrow – ‘Looking ahead fi ve years, what will your property portfolio look like?’ Decent questions to fi nd out where someone is now in their plans and where they’d like to be at some fi nite point in the future. You fi nd the gap between today and tomorrow. Hey presto, there’s a gap, one that your company can fi ll. But… often people are immune to
this. They know what you’re doing, they limit their answers and you only fi nd out a bit of the truth and you’re left a long way from the full picture. Going back in time changes the dynamic and it’s incredible how much people open up to you. Why? I
“Brilliant for
making people stop reading their emails and really engage in the conversation”
The right questions | Getting specifi c information from a client or potential partner helps you fi nd a gap for your company
think there are two main reasons: 1. The past is a well-packaged, oft-told story and they’re comfortable re- telling it (talking about today is hard as we’re often running around like proverbial fl ies with brightly-coloured posteriors); 2. They don’t think you can sell to yesterday. They can tell you all about what they did 2 years ago and that’s not going to open up a need into which you can sell. They relax, they’re comfortable, the information pours out often contradicting things they said earlier when their guard was up. You fi nd out so much key information with this one. There’s my top three. I promise that these questions will help you better understand your client and uncover information that ordinary salespeople will never fi nd. *Average mark out of ten given by Sales Directors is 7.
BUSINESS
www.opp-connect.com | DEC 2012/JAN 2013
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