Opening Questions

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchM

Don't be a noisy promoter.

Be ready for someone to step toward your display and ask: "Do you want to by a new phone today?"

If the answer is NO say "Okay." As skip says, you treated that person with respect and not a prospect to sell (though Skip and I disagree on method of selling.) That way you've kept the door open which increases your chance of selling to that person another time if not at that time.

If the person says "Yes." sell.

Read "High Probability Selling" by Jacques Werth for some of the best selling advice around today. In high probability prospecting YES and NO questions are important if you want to be highly successful. Once you hear a YES you continue to clarify with YES/NO questions BUT you also ask for conditions of satisfaction - what that person wants and what your phone features.

I also extend kudos to you, myers1984.

MitchM

The problem with yes/no questions when opening conversation is that prospects have conditioned themselves over the years to have their automatic answer kick in, which is "no." That doesn't mean they're not interested in your product, or that they don't have needs, it just simply means that they have learned to say "no", and do so automatically without thinking about it.

Is that what a salesperson should desire from their prospect? An automated response that is not based upon reality?

The answer should be "no."

Now, you could go ahead and ask a yes/no (closed) question, but you'll engage less prospects that way, and you'll sell less. There is no question about that.

Or, you can sell the way top performers sell:

1. Put product questions on the backburner; show an interest in the PERSON first;
2. Ask a question that can't be answered with a yes/no, thereby rendering the prospect "automatic response" as being not useful, so they won't use it as often; Use open-ended questions instead.
3. Engage the prospect. Wildly successful salespeople engage their prospects. Political candidates engage voters. People making a new friend engage their new friend. Excellent managers engage their employees. Leaders engage others. Marketers engage their markets. Our business and social infrastructure thrives on engagement, and sales thrive when salespeople engage their prospects. Asking "do you want to buy a new phone today" is not an engaging question for the majority of shoppers.

I can tell you that, from my experience, if you worked for my company and you sold that way, you would likely be the lowest revenue producer on any sales team I have ever managed.

Skip Anderson

Top performers have unique abilities and personal communication skills and they vary widly, Skip. Many top performers sell exactly the way I sell which is a fact, Skip - your posturing doesn't change that fact. Likewise, I know top performers who sell the as you teach selling - that too is fact.

We engage in friendships when the other person says: yes, I want to know more - talk to me. From that we look for immediate commitments - why I should spend my time talking - and for more detailed reasons the person wants what we offer.

In that comes an immediate conversation that has mostly to do with seeing if mutual trust and respect can exist followed by detailing conditions of satisfaction.

In all of that comes the relationship which evolves from direct and clear conversation.

We don't look for automatic responses, Skip - we listen for a natural YES I want that or NO I don't. These responses are always based on the immediate reality rather than an imagined or assumed psychological drama that many in sales believe has to occur to gain rapport, uncover hiden objections and needs, then close with solutions to this or that.

Likewise we thrive on engagement, on relationships, and work in a human field of absolute trust and respect with complete confidence and consideration of the other person.

It's quite beautiful, like a jewell, like a beautiful gem, Skip. But how would you know having never seen it.

MitchM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchM

It's quite beautiful, like a jewell, like a beautiful gem, Skip. But how would you know having never seen it.

MitchM

I will put my sales experience and knowledge, and what I have seen and experienced and taught others, up against your 12 years of multi-level marketing / network marketing / pyramid marketing experience any day.

But, if you have convinced yourself that non-selling behaviors are actually selling, then so be it, but it does not make you knowledgeable, enviable, or an expert.

There is no top performer, or medium performer selling in any business or company that I have ever worked in or been associated with that sells the way you describe you sell. You would fail miserably in any of the companies that I work for, plain and simple.

Be clear about this - locking yourself into a "this is a selling behavior and this is a non selling behavior" is an all around limitation that can have strong negative results. Selling behaviors include what I've just posted as well a what you've posted, Skip. Again, what I'm saying and you're saying each represent different ways of selling and top producers come from either system or method. That's a fact.

I see them in my company with top producers earning from a quarter million to a million dollars yearly - some have strong and compelling personalities and others low keyed and very ordinary. Likewise. some sell the way you promote and others the way I promote - and I take Mr. Werth's word and study as indicating that many top producers produce the way he suggests which I in a limited way suggest here.

Neither do I have any need to disregard the truth that people are successful in different ways. BUT I've seen struggling distributors turn from what you promote and what I promote and in that turn around begin to succeed.

Opening questions can be open ended or closed - probing questions are usually both - I simply begin with closed YES or NO in cold prospecting. On the other hand, in conversations, in conversational situations closed and open questions come to play - that's quite natural, Skip.

Likewise, Sharon Drew Miller has much to say about facilitating the decision making process which isn't contrary to what Mr. Werth calls high probability selling.

My guess is that opening up to possibility in what other approaches offer could open up your potential and productivity, Skip. Bu I may be wrong about that.

MitchM

Mitch your theories and your admiration for "Mr. Werth" are getting in the way of you understanding that people who sell retail products the way you suggested are either very low producers, or they quit because they aren't making enough money, or they end up without a job. It's that simple.

From your posts, I ascertain that you are a retired teacher who decided 12 years ago to try your hand at network marketing. That's great. But it doesn't turn you into a person that should be giving advice in areas where you simply don't have expertise, even though you mean well. I know you say you are a student of selling, but frankly, from your posts, I don't believe it.

MLM is not retail. I know retail. I don't know MLM. The thing I do know about retail is that everyone seems to exaggerate their earnings and the earnings potential of their opportunities.

The companies I work with usually fall into three categories:
- companies who are leading companies in their industries, and want to stay that way, so they invest in sales training.
- companies who are struggling, and need to figure out how to sell more products at more margin with less cost
- companies who decide they'd better do some sales training as an insurance policy against complacency.

In all three types of companies, the goal is to sell more. Certain strategies will help you sell more. Certain other strategies will guarantee you sell less (like the strategy you suggested).

Most salespeople fail. They get fired or quit. And many of those who fail or quit follow strategies like the one you suggest. I know you want to be helpful, but with all due respect, you simply do not know what you're talking about. If you opened up sales conversations the way you suggested, you would be a bottom producer. That's the reality of retail selling, unless you're a clerk instead of a salesperson.

You seem to confuse prospecting with selling. Our scenario wasn't a prospecting scenario, it was a selling scenario in a retail location where someone wanted advice on how to open the sales interaction. That's not prospecting.

Mitch, how would you feel if you entered a furniture store and the opening question from the sales rep was "do you want to buy a sofa?" Or how would you feel if you went into an open house at a house for sale and the agent said "do you want to buy a house?" Or how would you feel if you went into a cell phone store and the salesperson said, "Do you want to buy a phone?"

If you're like almost all people, you would find that question to be inappropriate and aggressive. It's jumping to a closing question at the beginning of a sales interaction. That's simply not effective. And it's not smart.

So the question you recommend is too aggressive for the scenario we were discussing.

It's also too passive. As I explained in my previous post, open ended questions foster engagement at a much higher rate than closed questions do. You don't want to believe that. So be it. But it's true.

I know that I am never going to convince you of my expertise, nor are you going to convince me that you have any business whatsoever making any sales recommendations to people who want to maximize their selling performance. It's true you are the third most prolific poster in this forum, but your reputation rating within the community is very low. It's low for a reason.

That will conclude my participation in this debate. I will leave it to others to discuss and/or debate the issue if they wish.

I work under no delusions or confusion, Skip. I retail retail retail - every month I retail and teach others how to do it - that's one way my distribution network grows - by selling products. Nor do I work from theory - I work 100% from experience.

I sold myself as a house painter for ten years; I worked retain for two years; I sold long distance service, drain and septic tank cleaner, and pagers for three years.

What I always post here, Skip is my experience - never theory - and I make it clear what my experience has been - people can learn something from my experience.

AND I've been a student of sales theory for decades - that counts for something also.

Skip, I have no confusion about prospecting - and how would I feel if the sales guy or gal asked me if I want to buy a sofa or a house? Delighted! Likewise, I find most of the things you seem to admire agressive and contrary to good sales practices. BUT people who sell the way you sell and recommend are successful - I don't need to make me right and you wrong because it's not that way.

Mitchm

Regardless of what type of sales you are in I highly recommend you read the book "How to connect in business in 90 seconds or less" by Nicholas Boothman. I just finished reading it and it encompasses the last 3 seminars I have been to!

It is an easy read and he not only talks about Open Question but he gives some examples. In addition, he discusses how you can use your body language, verbal language, and clothing choices to work for you and to make you more approachable!

I highly recommend reading this book! If you have been doing sales for a long time and think you already know all of these principles it is still a good reminder/refresher course on how to be on top of your game!

Good luck and never stop learning!

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchM

I find most of the things you seem to admire agressive and contrary to good sales practices.

Mitchm

Mitch, what are the things you think I admire?

From your posts, Skip, you seem to admire pulling sentences out of context as you just did from a lengthy post of mine to sell or create an argument or reason to debate something based on incomplete information. That's also one kind of leading sales question, isn't it.

In sales that's sometimes called "baiting someone" which is agressive and contrary to good sales practices as I see them.

BUT if they work for you and you like them then we do things differently.

MitchM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchM

From your posts, Skip, you seem to admire pulling sentences out of context as you just did from a lengthy post of mine to sell or create an argument or reason to debate something based on incomplete information. That's also one kind of leading sales question, isn't it.

In sales that's sometimes called "baiting someone" which is agressive and contrary to good sales practices as I see them.

BUT if they work for you and you like them then we do things differently.

MitchM

That's a cop out. You made a statement about me and I'm asking you to explain yourself and clarify it. That's not out of context. That's asking you to justify your remarks, plain and simple.

Perhaps your comment about me was "baiting someone."

Opening Questions

Sales Approach Forum