3 Strategies to Soften your Questions

Overview

Have you ever felt that you were interrogating your customer with your questions? Felt that you seem to ask question after question, well here're three excellent strategies to help you soften the blow and let your questioning style become pure conversation.

The Fallacy of Open Questions

Open questions versus closed questions. This battle has been fought for years and no one is the clear winner. However a good open question does lend itself to a fuller answer from your customer. But the trick is to know how to follow up.

Anyway here’s a reminder of the six open questions from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poems:

“I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who”

The dangerous one here is “why”. Proven to be antagonistic and annoying to the receiver. When faced with the “why” question, many customers will raise their defences as they feel as though they are being attacked.

Interesting.

The other problem with questions is shown by the rest of Kipling’s poem:

“I know a person small -
She keeps ten million serving men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends 'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes -
One million Hows, Two million Wheres,
And seven Million Whys!”

Care we don’t turn into a military interrogator.

Beware the Rising Tone?

“It’s called early teenage talk”

That was the response from a teenage expert after I asked about the irritating habit I’ve noticed my teenage son using when talking to his friends. “It’s called teenage talk”.
So what is this annoying habit that causes me to moan about?

It’s the constant rising tonality of every sentence that my son uses. His sentences start normal and then his voice rises at the end of the phrase or sentence. This continues for hours. Have you noticed it from people?

Now it’s not going to harm anyone and I should move on to worry about more important things but it actually is important in sales. More than people think.

We all know that communication is more than just the words chosen. Plenty of research carried out over the last 30 years shows that face to face communication consists of three parts – the words, the way you say them and the body language that’s used to launch the words. The tone of the voice has a remarkable influence on the meaning, more that we think.

Straight forward really. A flat tone tells you that the sentence is just a statement. A falling tone indicates a command and a rising sentence says there is a question here.

Try it now. Say something like. “It’s time to go to bed”. Say it with a flat, falling and then a rising tone and listen to the impact. It really works doesn’t it?

Now this little gem has a couple of practical sales uses. I like practical don’t you?

Firstly when asking question to find out your customer’s needs and pains make the questioning more palatable for them by raising your tone a little. This makes the question you ask much more pleasing to the ear and you’ll never be accused of interrogating your customer.

Secondly, when you want your customer to do something, drop your tone a little but only just a little. “So Bob, you’re happy to go ahead with the paperwork then?” It’s constructed as a question but the customer will accept it as a command. A little hypnotic maybe but your customer will do as you wish.

Now why do teenagers talk with rising tones on every sentence? I’ve no idea. It’s probably something to do with wanting a reaction to everything they say and so raising the tone in your sentence makes it sound like a question.

Or it’s just one of those things my teenage son does to irritate a grumpy old man like me!

Pre-Conditioning

Gosh that’s a terrible title don’t you think? Pre-conditioning…sounds like something you do in the shower!

But it can be really useful when selling on the telephone especially when asking questions. The theory works like this. Humans like to be told what’s coming up next, in other words to be pre-conditioned, so when it happens it’s not so much of a shock.

Let me give you an example. Many moons ago when I worked in estate agency, we had a property that refused to sell. Admittedly it was a little run down, in need of some urgent tender loving care, but a decent house for the price. But it refused to shift and we couldn’t realize why.

Until we had some feedback from a buyer who said that the roads on the way in were awful and just put them off before they even got to the house. So when they arrived at the home they were pre-conditioned to not like it.

So the next applicant, who was interested to have a look, was swiftly put in the manager’s BMW and driven to the house. Admittedly it was the long way there but the journey we chose was much more amenable and pleasant and put the applicant in the best frame of mind to view the house.

And it worked too!

Another practical tip is to use pre-conditions in your language when presenting to customers. I like to use the phrase “I’ve left the best to last”…and “here it is” or “and here’s the best news…”

You see, you’re pre-conditioning the next part of your statement and this is a really useful technique when asking questions that are a little tough.

• “Mr Brown, would you be able to tell me please….”
• “I hope you’re OK for me to ask…”
• “May I ask….”
• “I’d be curious to know….”
• “I’d be very interested to know…”
• “Tell me…”

Here’s how to avoid a trap I often hear salespeople falling into. Don’t pre-condition negatively for example,

• “I’m sorry to ask this….”
• “We have to talk about the cost now I’m afraid”
• “I hope you don’t mind me asking but…”

You see you’re simply negatively pre-conditioning them with your language.

Paul is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK.

He specialises in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small.

Sign up to my weekly Sales and Coaching tips and get a free report on getting the best out of 2009 plus a free hypnotic relaxation MP3 to download. 

www.archertraining.co.uk

01452 730276
 
paul@paularcher.com

Blog – www.paularcher.com

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