Bad sales question advice

In “Ask the right sales questions“, we talked about the plethora of advice on the Internet for asking sales questions. Below are the top few Google results for “sales questions”. What a bunch of garbage - I’ll follow each Google result (in quotes) with a note on why I have such a problem with these prevalent sales questions.

• “Ask open ended questions”
  • No kidding. What kind of sales advice is this? How could you use this in an actual sales call? You couldn’t.
• “You need to ask questions to qualify your prospects”
  • Tempting to again say no kidding. But much of my teaching is to ask questions to disqualify your prospects, not qualify them. They need to be as worthy for your business as you need to be for theirs.
• “Don’t ask questions unless you know the answer”
  • We’re salespeople not lawyers. And why would we bother asking questions if we already know the answers? Are those even questions then?
• “A good question from your salespeople helps focus and shape the direction in which your customer’s mind works”
  • This one disgusts me so much that I don’t know where to start. If you have a mentor, trainer, boss, or co-worker that subscribes to this sales theory of manipulating customers into buying your product, get far away fast. This one really goes directly against everything I believe in - having high intent and always having your customer’s best interest at heart.

It is my sincere hope that through the posts and pages in this blog that the above sales myths are debunked and you begin to learn to hold your head high and be proud that you are a salesperson. In return you’ll always have a full and healthy sales funnel.