How to Ask Better Questions Sooner

Anyone can share information.

It’s the questions you ask—not the information you share—that is going to make the sale.

Plus, the answers you get aren’t just going to educate you, but also your future prospects.

This blog is brought to you by an episode of The Sales Hunter Podcast. Find it wherever you stream podcasts!

1. Engage with questions, not information.

Customers can get information. If you want to engage a prospect, engage them with questions. It’s the questions you ask that are going to get them talking about the information you need to hear.

If all you do is share information, sure, you’re educating the customer, but you’re not doing anything for yourself.

Questions aren’t limited to discovery. I can even ask questions in the prospecting email, or a prospecting voicemail.

Read What Prospects Want to Hear.

2. Show your confidence and competence.

Asking questions more frequently is a way that I demonstrate two things: my confidence and my competence.

Asking questions that are relative to your business, or your industry, set you apart as more qualified and more informed.

“George, I’m Mark Hunter, really interested in how you’re going to be handling the change in regulations regarding X. Got some information I can share with you. Call me.”

You see what I did there? I asked a question relative to something of interest to their industry. I love leading off with something that connects to them.

This is much better than saying, “Hi, I’m Mark Hunter with so-and-so, we’ve been in business for 65 years and yada, yada, yada.” That’s just telling you information that’s not going to get you anywhere.

3. Questions help you qualify.

If I have the ability to get you on the phone, I’m going to ask you that question and depending on how you respond, I’m going to ask you a follow-up question. I’ll keep asking you questions in order to truly understand if I can qualify you as a prospect.

If all I’m doing is sharing information, I have no idea if you’re a qualified prospect. It just means you’re a lead, a suspect that responded. The sooner I ask questions, the sooner I save myself from wasting precious time on a prospect that won’t buy.

via Amazon Prime Video on GIPHY

4. The more specific the questions the better.

This is one of the reasons why prospecting always has to happen within an ICP. Your ideal customer profile has got to be tight, as then the questions I use for one prospect I can use for another.

I begin to get Intel back. When I’m asking questions within the ICP, I’m not only educating myself, but I’m educating future prospects.

You want to be able to write out 10 questions that you can ask a prospect in your industry. Then you only need to do a little research to create three to four company-specific questions.

Now I’ve got 13, 14 questions. I’m going to lead off with a question relative to your company, or you personally. In other words, the tighter I can make the question, the more effective. Then I may add an industry question, and suddenly they begin to realize, whoa, this person’s pretty smart.

The more times you ask these questions, you’re going to be able to refine them even better.

5. Meaningful questions get you to the next step.

If I’m asking you meaningful questions and you’re responding to me, I’m going to be much more likely to get that CTA, call to action.

“Hey, great conversation. Tuesday, 10 o’clock if you’ve got time. Let’s put it on the calendar right now. I’ve got quite a bit more information to share with you.”

I’m creating a value-added ‘call to action’ based on the questions.

Questions will drive the results you want to achieve in prospecting.