Posted by Dave Lorenzo - Business Coach

The sales process is all about filling the wants and needs of your customers.  How do you know what they want?  You need to ask.

Seth Godin has posted a list of the types of questions that don’t work.  They are:

1. Asking a question with no query. Examples: “Your neighbors don’t like you.” “Some people think you killed your wife.”

2. Double-barrelled questions. Like: “Is this your first business? How did you get started?” You’re unlikely to get answers to both. One question at a time.

3. Overloading. Ask: short, simple questions. “What is it like to be accused of murder?”

4. Adding your own remarks. Again, this is not the time or place to say that you hate Chryslers… You’re not being interviewed.

5. Trigger words. One famous example of this was when TV reporter John Stossell asked a pro wrestler about the “sport’’ by volunteering this about the fighting: “I think it’s fake.” The pro wrestler hit him twice. “Was that fake?” he demanded.

6. Hyperbole by the questioner. Overstatement typically causes the interview subject to counterbalance by understating…

7. Closed query (Yes or No question). If the question begins with a verb, its most likely a closed question — and will generate a one word answer.

Filed under: Sales
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