Getting Started in Consulting, 4th Edition

Appendix A 101 Questions for Any Sales Situation You’ll Ever Face

This material is intended to provide questions to ask in virtually any sales situation, thereby accomplishing the following five goals:

1. Maintaining a conversational and nonsales approach.
2. Keeping the other party talking in order to learn.
3. Avoiding deselection by volunteering very little yourself.
4. Finding the buyer, building a relationship, and closing business.
5. Accelerating the entire sales process.

I strongly advise that you personalize the generic questions so that they support your particular practice or business.

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

A Few Guidelines for Use

• Don’t 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 (that is, they believe you have their best interests in mind).
• Never be content with a single question, no matter how satisfying the answer appears to be. Some people will attempt ...