Impact questions uncover your customer’s motivations and sense of urgency — or lack thereof. Based on his response, you can quickly determine whether you’ve earned the right to start selling, or you need to find a different line of questioning to uncover his real needs, or realize it’s time to walk away. Once he outlines his business problem, get to the heart of the matter:

If this problem you’ve identified continues (without being corrected), what will the consequences be?

Assessing the competition from time to time is a matter of survival for any business. All your customers, no matter how successful they are, can’t help looking over their shoulders to see which of their competitors might be gaining on them. Get them thinking ahead with this question:

“How do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?”

This should spark a dialogue with your customers, compelling them to take a good look at their rivals and figure out ways to favorably set themselves and their business solutions apart from the rest of the pack. Best of all, it positions you as an expert to help offer answers and provide them that competitive edge.  

VISION QUESTIONS prompt your customers to consider a positive future as a direct result of doing business with you. Vision questions help your customers discover how much better their business situations will improve — once they implement your sales plan. Here’s an example:

“If you could implement the changes we’ve discussed, how do you envision your job (or career) 5 years from now?”

Vision questions unleash your customer’s view of the future and make it clear what needs to be done to accomplish these goals. Vision questions open the door to how you, the salesperson, can be a vital part of your customer’s solution. Vision questions enable your customer to sell himself on WHY he needs YOU — instead of the other way around!
 

You’d think your customers would be sensitive to what’s important to their own customers. Surprisingly, that’s not always the case. Consider buyers or purchasing agents who you may routinely call on. These folks have little, if any, contact with their customers who buy from them. All too often, they can be stunningly clueless about their external customer’s needs.  Instead they would rather hammer you on lowering your price. How do you convince these folks the importance of understanding value?  Here’s a key question to unlock those external customer’s wants and needs: