Asking the right probing questions for sales can often be the difference between failure and success. Always remember that the best salesperson is the one who asks the best questions.

But how do you know if you are asking the right questions? In this video, we show you a process for identifying the optimum list of questions to ask when selling.

Different for Every Product
Every salesperson who sells a different product could have a different set of probing questions for sales. This is because the optimum set of questions that you ask should be tied to the different benefits provided and problems resolved.

When you change the product that the salesperson is selling, all of those benefits and problems change, and as a result, the probing questions for sales will also probably change.

Start by Thinking About Benefits
If you want to work on your list of questions, you can start by thinking about the different benefits that your products help to offer. Brainstorm and make a list of these.

Examples of benefits could be:

  • We help to decrease order cycle time.
  • We help to decrease the level of stress and make sleep easier at night.
  • We improve revenue from new customers.

Then Think About the Problems You Fix
Next, brainstorm a list of problems that you help to fix. A great way to create this list is by looking at your list of benefits. For each benefit, there is most likely a corresponding problem that is fixed.

If we use the previous examples, we could develop this list of problems resolved.

  • Order cycle time can often take too long.
  • It can be very stressful not knowing when an outage will occur.
  • There is not enough revenue being generated from new customers.

Develop Probing Questions for Sales
Take your list of resolved problems and use that to generate a list of questions to ask the sales prospect. For each problem, there should be one or two questions that you could ask to determine whether the problem exists.

If we continue with the same example, we might arrive at the following list of questions:

  • How important is it for you to find ways to decrease order cycle time?
  • Do you ever find yourself stressed when thinking about the potential for an outage?
  • Is it a priority for you to increase the amount of revenue generated from new customers?

As you can see, those three steps take you through a structured process that will lead you to build an optimum list of probing questions for sales.