What would you think of a Doctor that diagnosed and treated you like this?

Doctor: “What brings you here today?”

You: “I’ve been having stomach pains.”

Doctor: “When did you first notice the problem?”

You: “About a month ago, I started waking up at night with stomach pains. Now it seems like I have them all the time.”

Doctor: “Ah, I know exactly what you need...if I could give you something that would cure your stomach pains, you’d be interested right?”

Sounds like a quack, right?

How could the doctor possibly know for sure what’s causing your stomach pains with so little information…and of course you’d be interested in a cure – isn’t that why you came to see a doctor?

Unfortunately, lots of salespeople take this kind of “quack doctor” approach to diagnosing and treating their prospects’ problems. Like the doctor in the example above, these salespeople know they need to ask questions. The problem is they don’t ask enough of the right questions to get below the surface.  AND they fail to gain the trust and confidence of the prospect because they can’t resist the urge to launch into an all-out sales pitch.

Here’s an example from a recent IMPACT Selling Seminar:

We were practicing questioning techniques with a salesperson who sells manufacturing equipment. One of the main benefits his company offers is a unique supply chain model that allows them to get replacement parts in place faster than their competitors. The salesperson was asking questions while another trainee played the role of a plant manager prospect:

Salesperson: “Are you experiencing any problems with downtime due to equipment breakdowns?”

Plant manager prospect: “Yes, last month we had a breakdown.”

Salesperson: “Did the breakdown cause you to have to slow or stop production?”

Plant manager prospect: “One of our assembly lines was down for several hours.”

Salesperson: “If I could show you a way to cut your downtime in half and get replacement parts in two hours or less…you’d be interested right?”

This salesperson started out with two good probing questions. But instead of digging deeper he jumped right in and started selling – his third question isn’t really even a question – it’s a pitch!

The whole idea of asking questions is to get your prospect to identify, verbalize, and discuss their needs, wants, and desires. There are two reasons that this process is essential to making the sale:

Think back to the example with the doctor. In order to diagnose and treat symptoms effectively, the doctor must start with a thorough examination. If the patient doesn’t feel confident in the doctor or the diagnosis, he or she will probably refuse treatment and seek another opinion.

Here’s how you can avoid falling into this common trap:

Possible problem: Manufacturing processes that waste raw materials
Problem resolution question: “How much manufacturing waste, if any, do you currently experience?”

To find out, simply ask agitation questions to follow up each problem-resolution question. For example:

You say: “How much manufacturing waste, if any, do you currently experience?”

You hear: “Quite a bit.”
You say: “If you don’t mind me asking, what is ‘quite a bit’?” [Agitation question]

You hear: “Enough to make a significant difference in our gross profit.”

You say: “How big a problem is that to your profit picture? What will happen if it continues?” [Agitation question]

You can use these questions to learn lots of powerful information that you’ll be able to use later. This technique works with any product, service, or offering. The reason? Most people are far more interested in alleviating problems than anything else.

However, we’re not done yet. There is a third leg to this stool – solution and feeling-based questions.
Solution- and Feeling-Based Questions

You say: “How do you feel about that?”
You hear: “Not good.”
You say: “What steps, then, if any, have you taken to alleviate the problem?”

[Customer explains some steps taken]

You say: “How do you feel about those things? How severely have they affected you so far? What happens if this continues?”
You hear: “I have noticed some morale problems and some customer grumbling.
Maybe I ought to start looking into it.”

You’ll notice that we have taken the questions through three levels:

1. Problem-resolution questions
2. Agitation questions
3. Solution and feeling-based questions

This is a process you can use to determine the level of pain caused by any problem for any prospect, with any product or service, and in any business-to-business or business-to consumer situation.  If you learn to use it effectively, you’ll see that the power of this approach lies in letting prospects sell themselves on the idea of taking action to solve their problems.  It’s the simplest formula for overcoming resistance. 

Again, here’s the formula:

It’s really that simple!