All sales coaches would have trained you on questions you should be asking during a sales presentation. I would talk today on questions you should never be asking. There are a lot of questions being asked that are simply stupid. They are actually hurting salespeople in the sales process and the prospects automatically turn off as soon as they hear these questions.

Let us talk about these 10 worst questions and ensure that you never ask them again.

“How are you?”

This is commonly used as a conversation starter in 95% of selling situations reflexively and it’s killing them. The prospect knows that you don’t really care how they’re doing. Most sales people are starting calls, meetings and even emails with this stupid question. Just stop ever asking anyone that question. Come out with something more creative. As a way to start a conversation you may ask-“Did I catch you in the middle of something?” This will actually catch them off-guard and will be more likely to actually get engagement.

“How can I help you?”

No one wants to be sold. The prospect immediately feels like they’re being cornered and being pushed into making a close. They go defensive and go into a shell.

Instead you may ask-“can I provide you information? May be I can ask some questions to help understand your needs and provide you with information to help you move along.”

“Do you have a minute?”

All of us know nothing could be sold in a minute. What it conveys to the prospect is that your time is not valuable. It only shows that you are lying and you lose all credibility.    

You may instead ask-“Is this a good time to talk?”

“Can I set up a call so I can learn more about your challenges?”

This is one of the worst questions to ask as it shows absolutely zero value on the sales person’s part. Show some value through the quality of your questions. Then just set the logical next step to go deeper.

“Would you be interested if……?”

Whatever you fill in the blank, there is going to be a stupid question. Your objective during a sales call is not only to get the customer interested but also to uncover their challenges. You should be asking questions to identify the challenges that matter and then solving them.

“Are you the decision maker?”

This is way too direct and will never get the information you really need. Asking this stupid question will get you either false information or offending and pissing off your prospect. Instead, learn about their decision making process by focussing on the process. So, when you talk to them regarding their decision making process, they will actually tell you who are involved in their decision and how do they go about making a decision.

“What can I tell you right away that would make you buy?”

This question is a high pressure and so transparent that it tells your prospect you are there to just sell him your product and you have no intent to help him satisfy his actual need.

“How could you not want this deal?”

You cannot push. You cannot shovel down your product in your prospect’s throat. Instead, make the prospect realize that your product will actually help them or take their business to the next level.

“Would you like some time to think about it?”

Delay kills sales. Lead the prospect towards a buying decision and close the sales then and there.

“Would you like a proposal or a quote?”

Close the sale without a quote. Get a commitment after you have properly qualified a prospect, take out the agreement and sign the deal.

Stop asking these stupid questions during a sales presentation. Instead, help the prospect uncover challenges, show how your offerings will actually solve them and then set clear next steps.

During a sales conversation, ask

• Intelligent questions,
• Smart questions
• Leading questions
• The discovery questions
• The multiple choice questions
• The redirect questions

Closing is nothing more than asking the right prospect the right questions at the right time.

You have all seen big budget mega movies with leading actors and expensive sets bomb at the box office. They fall flat on their face as they do not have a story line to support their presentation.

A sales presentation may face the same fate. A formal sales presentation must get attention of the prospect and make him interested in the product. The sales person can do it through a lively and interesting sales talk as well as a systematic demonstration of the product. The product could be offered to feel, taste or smell depending on the nature of the product.

It is important to know about the presentation process and how to be more persuasive and how to put a structure together for a good presentation.

It’s always good to have a great opening to your presentation.  Talking too much and not asking enough questions may confuse the customer. If it’s too many statements without questions, you’re not a good presenter. A good presenter is somebody that’s asking relevant questions because you get to find about the customer and his buying needs. Providing some insight or some information that the customer may not know as an attention grabber may be a powerful opening.

Another aspect of a great presentation is that you must have a narrative or a story line–

• What is your presentation about?
• What’s the key point you are about to make?

It may be a new technology that may be your cutting edge or you may be trying to convince the customer that he needs to replace the product or company he is using at present with yours as you are better.

Having a nice and crisp narrative supported by two or three key messages makes the presentation that much powerful. Produce authentic evidences to prove the product’s superiority.

Every time a presentation is made, it always begins with the obvious end in mind. What is the end? What do you want to happen when your presentation is done? You need to have this clearly defined in your thoughts even before you put together your presentation. The desired outcome must be clearly defined before making the presentation. It helps you build your presentation towards the pre defined desired outcome.

Address any concerns or objections the prospect may have. A good sales person must interpret objections clearly and remove them tactfully. Unless the objections and complaints are satisfactorily answered, the sales cannot take place.

Last but not the least; the presentation must have an outcome. So, as you move towards the close, you must start asking for commitments.

Qualities of a good presentation:

• Presentation is questions and knowing your craft, knowing your product and generally not B sing people whom you don’t know what you are talking about.
• Sales Presentation must be complete covering all aspects related to company, product, competitive benefits, etc.
• Sales Presentation must be clear, free from all confusions and vagueness.
• Sales Presentation must be consistent.
• Sales Presentation must be precise.
• Sales Presentation must prove superiority of products over competition.
• Sales Presentation must be confidence winning.
• Sales Presentation must be supported with evidences. A good sales person must produce testimonials, awards and guarantees issued by government or test labs, celebrities, and other reliable sources.

The Sales Presentation Process may be summarised

• Start with a structure
• Start with a good opening with some attention grabbers/did you know information/some key insights/ information beyond the obvious
• Create a narrative or a storyline
• Support your narrative with demonstration/social proofs/things you have done with other customers
• Reduce resistance by effectively handling objections
• Close by asking commitment questions.

During your presentation, you have to answer three key questions which the customer always has in mind:

Why do I need to change?

Why should I do it now?

Why should I buy From you?
 

• What would you do?
• What would you say?
• What would you show?
• What would you demonstrate to answer the above three key questions?

If you can answer these three key questions, a customer is more likely to say “YES” than a “NO” to your sales presentation.

Be well prepared- Prepare, prepare, practice, practice and then practice more for an effective presentation. You only have one shot at making a first impression.

“If you do not prepare or plan to succeed, you are planning to fail.”

Athletes and sports teams prepare before a game. Can you imagine a top sports team arriving to an important game without any preparation or practice? Can you imagine them not spending time studying strategies or tactics of the other team?

For sales professionals, the game is the sales call.

Why do we fail to pre-plan our sales call? There are varieties of reasons:

• We may know the customer well,
• We may feel confident that we can anticipate and respond to questions,
• We may be too busy to develop a sales plan and spend time preparing for the call and
• We may feel that we are skilled at improvising or winging it.

Researches reveal something interesting. Even if we are good at all of the above, we can still be more effective with a plan. With a plan, we can measure our improvisation skills for the circumstances that inevitably arise that we couldn’t anticipate or plan for.

HOW DO WE PLAN?

1. Prepare for your meeting- ensure you are well prepared with:

• Who will be there?
• What do I know about him?
• What is your objective?
• What is your alternative objective?
• What is your last alternative?
• What questions might I get? – anticipate questions
• What objections or stalls?

There are two parts to preparation-

2. Ensure you have all the required materials- sales tools/aids etc.
3. Arrange: Yourself, Bag, Interview
4. Rehearse and visualize the Interview- its results and actions

WHAT YOU’VE JUST DONE?

• You’ve programmed your mental computer to direct you to your goal
• You’re preparing to Succeed.

TERRITORY PLANNING

• Where are my customers located?
• How can I best cover the territory?
• Where am I planning to meet my targets?
• Territory account inventory
• List of active and potential customers
• Divide customers into few larger zones to avoid fire fighting calls
• Plan loop journeys
• The first call should be farthest from the base and salesperson should work back towards his base.

The better prepared you are for your calls, the easier they will be. A little research, a known objective, some anticipation and visualisation, having your marketing materials ready and a planned territory will give you more confidence when you make calls and lead you to the road to success.

Do let me know what you picked and implemented from this blog, and how it impacted your sales calls. I look forward to know about your experience.

Do not forget to grab this Sales Call Planning Checklist I created Just For You.