Getting Started in Consulting, Third Edition

Appendix H. 101 Questions for Any Sales Situation You'll Ever Face

An Overview

This material is intended to provide questions to ask in virtually any sales situation, thereby:

• Maintaining a conversational and nonsales approach.

• Keeping the other party talking so you can learn.

• Avoiding deselection by volunteering very little yourself.

• Finding the buyer, building a relationship, and closing business.

• Accelerating the entire sales process.

You might choose to take these questions on calls, to keep them by the phone, or to use them as the basis for printing out your own questions to keep in your briefcase or calendar. The copyright is intended to protect the work as it is presented, and to avoid resale or unethical use. You should feel free, however, to incorporate the generic questions and the derivations that flow from them into your personal routine and support materials.

The questions are deliberately overlapping, and stop just short of duplicative. Essentially, you want to elicit the same information in as many diverse ways as possible.

A Few Guidelines for Use

• Dont interrogate people. It's seldom necessary to ask even the majority of questions in any one category.

• Employ follow-up questions. The questions contained herein are triggers that may engender a response that demands further clarification.

• Trust is essential for candor. The other party will be most honest and responsive when trust is established (for example, they believe you have their best interests in mind).

• Never be content with ...