Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success

CHAPTER 6

Questioning Skills

What’s Your Prospect’s Story?

SALES PROFESSIONALS often use the phrase, “Find the prospect’s pain.” The idea is that if the salesperson can uncover the prospect’s business challenges, there is a much greater chance of the prospect writing them a check to resolve them.

Studies support that point of view. Neil Rackham, author of bestselling books such as SPIN Selling (McGraw-Hill, 1988) and Major Account Selling (McGraw-Hill, 1989), has done extensive research on why prospects buy. His investigation shows that close ratios increase as much as 50 percent when salespeople discover the prospect’s pain and then discuss its impact or implications with the prospect.

There are also hundreds of sales books, blogs, and articles ...