Asking your prospect questions about their use of your product or service is maybe one of the most important parts of the sales process.

Even when you’ve got cool, innovative, time saving advances in technology, you need to know how the customer is – or even will – use them.

Whirlpool’s smart appliances sound like a sure thing but the company is smart enough to test (read: question) the marketplace about using them before they go off and launch a full line of products no one wants.

That would be like a salesperson going into a sales call touting their product’s benefits that don’t apply to the prospect’s needs. And that happens far too often. It’s a mistake that is entirely avoidable if you just ask questions.

Too often salespeople tell prospects about the benefits and features they think are important or that other customers like – the risk is glossing over the single most important benefit to the prospect that’s in front of you.