By Tibor Shanto

In sales it seems everyone has bought in to the value of and the need to use questions in moving a sale forward. But questions like most things come in many shapes and sizes, and their success depends on more that just being asked. A question asked during a prospecting call may yield different results than the same question would if asked in a first or second face to face meeting and we are going beyond the open ended vs. closed ended question. By the way, I think the closed ended question has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation, in many ways due to the issue being discussed here, at the right time for the right reason for a specific desired result; a closed ended question can be the best to use.

The key is to evaluating the potential risk in the answer the question could generate, once evaluated, you measure the risk and decide if the question is right based on the level of risk, and how well that risk can be managed or contained.

Let’s look at a specific, one questions many people like to use when making initial contact with a potential buyer (cold, warm, basked socialized, whatever), is “Have you heard of Acme Solutions?” Before we even get into it, an immediate response on the part of the recipient may be yes even if they have never heard of Acme, just to avoid allowing the seller to start reading a five page history of Acme and its roots with the pilgrims on the Mayflower. But looking at the question, there are likely two potential answers, Yes or No. In my view No is the better answer, because there are no preconceptions, we start with a blank slate and create from there. Yes, on the other hand is filled with risk, because it forces you to ask what they know, who they know it from, how long have they known, doesn’t matter which you start with, you have to ask one.

Suppose you start with “oh, that’s great, what do you know about us?”; or let’s say you’re the creative sort and want to be assumptive, “oh, so you know we are the leading creators of sliced bread since Moses!” Either way you may a response that sound like “actually I heard that you are at the higher end of the price range with average quality and customer response rate.” Where do you go now, remember you are trying to secure a face to face meeting, and now you have to deal with this, true or not you have to deal with it, you have to deal with their perception. This same question could work well in a face to face situation because it can be used as a launch point to explore a number of useful facts about the buyer and their views, values, and decision process; but not on a set the meeting call.

One can argue that a closed ended question is much more valuable in this type of scenario. Let’s make it a bit more real than sliced bread, say you were a freight consolidator, rather than asking if they heard of you, what they heard, etc. You can ask if they have consolidating initiative under way, no matter how they phrase it, the answer can only come down to two things, they do or they don’t. Either one then allows you to present that there is a need to meet; if they do not, you can educate them on the upside of doing so. If they do, you can show them how what you have done with other current clients may fit with their current initiative, but you would need to meet to know that.

If questions are a tool of your trade, you need to make sure they are sharp and you are using the right tool for the right part of the job. It takes a few minutes to work through the potential answers to a question, once you have the list of answers, then measure the risk. If the risk can be managed, use, if not, consider another. Remember the goal is not to limit the answers, the goal is to understand how you can manage the answers, and use them to move the process forward. If you would like an example of the question decision tree for the examples above, contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

What’s in Your Pipeline?

Tibor Shanto , Principal with Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., and find out how he has helped dozens of organization to fill their pipeline with real prospects - - driving real revenue.

You can also read the blog edition of The Pipeline at www.sellbetter.ca/blog. For more information on helping your team sell better, write to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or call 416 671-3555. You can also follow Renbor on Twitter http://twitter.com/renbor.