Your follow-up questions are more important than your initial questions.
Follow-up questions are always going to be worth more to you in terms of giving you valuable information than your initial question ever will be.
Buyers typically will not throw out the real important information with the first question. Instead, they will first offer up very soft or shallow information. Buyers do this because they either don’t have confidence in you the salesperson or they simply don’t want to publically share information that could make them look anything but perfect.
This is why I believe it’s only after you start asking follow up questions that you can begin to really determine the customer’s needs. It’s also only after you start asking follow-up questions that the customer will begin sharing what main benefits they want. Both of these are very important because a customer will only fully begin to internalize or accept the value of what you’re offering after they have shared verbally what their needs are.
Another key reason why I like follow-up questions is they allow the customer to share information that may help open the door for additional sales — either now or sometime in the future. The more I can get the customer to talk, the greater the opportunity I have in serving them. By allowing them to do the talking, they feel they’re more engaged.
The best way I’ve found to ask a follow-up question is by simply asking the question, “Can you explain more?” By asking something as simple as this, you’re getting the customer engaged. Take a couple of minutes and jump over and read the article I wrote about how to get your customer engaged with follow-up questions. Here is the link: https://thesaleshunter.com/resources/articles/sales-call-best-practices/your-customer-is-lying/
Copyright 2010, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
