The most important component in selling is the ability to ask questions.
When asking questions, if you focus on finding the best way to serve your customer, you will intuitively ask the right questions.
You sell yourself by asking questions and showing an interest in your customer.
People like you because of the way you make them feel about themselves.
The only way to find out what the customer is thinking is to ask instead of to tell.
If you talk about yourself and your wonderful product, you will never have the relationship with your client that kindles repeat business.
Telling is a self-centered sales technique that is ineffective, compared to the art of asking questions.
Prospects tend to answer more truthfully when the question is asked three times.
When you discover where the bruise is, let him relate his painful experience and relive it all over again.
While reading the daily newspaper, look for articles about your customers that will stimulate new ideas and new ways you can serve them better.
Read industry publications.
Form a customer council, made up of your key customers, and hold a monthly meeting or call them individually to discuss current challenges.
Call your customers periodically to remind them that you are available to help them.
Write notes often.
You can assume you know what a client wants, but until you ask, it is only a guess.
Speak in terms of the client’s interests by asking questions and being attentive to the responses.
How would knowing __________, help you?
And how would that help you?
And then what would happen?
Would that affect your __________ budget?
How could it benefit you personally if you could increase your __________ budget?
Talk in terms of his/her interests.
Listen to the responses, sometimes repeating them, and then design the next question based on what was said.