4 Goals and 3 Sales Questions for Every Client Meeting

4 Goals and 3 Sales Questions for Every Client Meeting
Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn

Sales Questions for Every Client Meeting
Salespeople used to be trained how to present their offerings as persuasively as possible. Today, sales presentation skills are less important than being proficient at researching, preparing, and identifying sales questions for every client meeting that matter most.

What Sales Experts Say
Rather than touting what your solutions can do for the customer, high performing solution sellers have four simple, but powerful sales goals to:

  • Establish personal and professional credibility
  • Learn what matters most to the customer
  • Add measurable value
  • Have agreed upon next steps

Sales is About Them, Not You
In other words, when you meet with a target client, you should not focus on what you can do but on THEM — what they need and how you can help them to succeed. In essence, the questions come before the plan — the information gathering and building of trust come before the solution and your unique value proposition.

Sales Preparation Equals Sales Success
Any good sales management training for sales leaders knows that your sales team should be fully prepared for every client meeting.  You should know as much as possible about the customer, their industry, their market and their challenges. If you are unprepared, you will not be ready to ask intelligent, thoughtful questions or be able to offer relevant, valuable insights.

Three Sales Questions for Every Client Meeting
You will need to ask insightful sales questions for every client meeting — plenty of them — but keep in mind that this meeting should not feel like an interrogation but more like a conversation. The way you ask the sales questions should demonstrate that you are genuinely interested in learning about your customer’s situation so that you can eventually provide the exact solution to their problem.

  1. Open-ended Sales Questions
    Begin with open-ended sales questions that can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. Ask broad enough sales questions that encourage your prospect to share their perspective on what’s going on and why it’s important.

    Ask permission to take notes. You don’t want to forget what they’ve said and how they said it.

  2. Probing Sales Questions
    Open-ended sales questions give you the background you need to follow up with probing sales questions that drill down a level to more specifics. Here you have a chance to uncover specific needs that the prospect may not have considered — a chance to show your expertise and add value.

    Some examples are:  Have you tried to solve this problem before?  How high in priority is this project compared to other initiatives on your plate?  What would happen if you didn’t solve the problem?

  3. Confirming Sales Questions
    As you reach the close of the meeting, check to see that you have accurately understood what you have heard by providing a summary, e.g., “I understood you to say — Did I get it right?” These questions also highlight your engagement with the prospect and their issues.

The Bottom Line
The best solution sellers use business sales training best practices to ask the best sales questions for every client meeting.  They ask them skillfully, they listen well, and they impress upon the prospect their sincere interest in helping them succeed personally and professionally. Their questions have purpose, add value, and are insightful.

To learn more about asking the best sales questions for every client meeting, download The 30 Most Effective Sales Questions to Get Right When Selling Solutions

Evaluate your Performance

Toolkits

Get key strategy, culture, and talent tools from industry experts that work

More

Health Checks

Assess how you stack up against leading organizations in areas matter most

More

Whitepapers

Download published articles from experts to stay ahead of the competition

More

Methodologies

Review proven research-backed approaches to get aligned

More

Blogs

Stay up to do date on the latest best practices that drive higher performance

More

Client Case Studies

Explore real world results for clients like you striving to create higher performance

More