Why Questions Are Important In Any Sales Pitch

The main reason why any business exists is that the owner/founder identified a problem in the Market and decided to create a solution for it. As an entrepreneur, you need you to understand what the potential buyer's challenges and concerns are before you can start pitching your product, and it's fantastic benefits. When people feel like you don't understand, they'll never buy from you.

People aren't interested in what you're selling; they only care about their problem and finding someone who can fix it. A pitch is a statement, a presentation. So if you start the conversation with that, then you are going to come across as someone greedy and trying to push sales by all means necessary.

Which will cause you to lose that prospect because you haven't applied effective questioning to even know for sure that what you're offering them will be a great fit or not?

Why ask questions?

When people are speaking, that's when they are most engaged, rather than when they are listening. Because when listening it's easy to drift off and start losing focus. So when you're selling, don't go on and on about yourself, your product or company. Instead, ask questions because people love to talk about themselves. They love talking about what their goals and challenges are. And that's how you build trust and increase sales.

Imagine visiting the doctor, and immediately after greeting you, he enthusiastically says:

"Hey, I have the following qualifications which I acquired throughout XYZ, and I've got over 20 years experience".

Or

"Hey, we have this incredible procedure".

Instead, he will ask the following questions;

"where are you feeling that pain?" or "what's going on? help me understand."

This way, it becomes a two-way dialogue instead of a "Pitch". That's why after visiting the doctor, we don't feel like we've wasted our money. Instead, we feel like we got value for money because they made us feel cared for and important. Avoid pitching from the onset. Pitching kills a lot of sales.

Take a step back

Look, it's human nature to want to pull back or resist, whenever we feel like we are being pushed into something that we aren't entirely convinced about or see it is in our best interests. You have to put yourself in their shoes to understand why they would buy from you and what they care about and the problems they face.

When a prospect comes to you with a problem or challenge, don't say

"Guess what you're at the right place we have the all the right products to help you".

That's how an amateur salesperson tries to close sales. Instead, do it like a professional and ask questions like,

"what would you say this problem is costing you?"

It's very easy to talk to anyone about our problems at a surface level, but if you want to build trust and increase sales, you have to go deeper into their issues or challenges.

Remember

"Whoever asks the questions controls the conversation".

Only after you've thoroughly listened to their concerns can you now make your sales pitch.

Building trust through empathy

Instead of trying to convince a stakeholder or decision maker that their business is meaningful to you or how you can improve their performance or reduce costs, you should approach sales from a problem-solving angle. First, you need to identify and eliminate their possible objections.

By asking questions you come across as empathetic, you find out what bothers them, what holds them back, where their issues lie, and the complexity or severity of the said issue.

Once you identify what is essential to the prospect, you can then use that to create a middle-ground between them, the product or service you're selling and a possible solution they've been looking for or didn't realise they needed.

Refining your pitch on the fly

Anyone can go into a meeting room and run off a sales script and try to get a sale, but the top salespeople are the ones that provide a dynamic and personalised experience. They treat every sales meeting as an entirely different ball game and pivot their pitch to match the perceptions of the client.

Each prospect has different problems, different scale of issues, different moods and temperaments, different decision-making styles and slamming down a static sales pitch is never going to sit well with everyone.

It would be best if you were dynamic, and asking questions is a great way to buy time while you try to adjust your sales pitch.

About the author

Nomsa Chauke is a South African businesswoman, she spends her time as the Co-Founder of Platform4change NPO as well as the Director at Nu Radar Business Solutions Pty Ltd. She's also a motivational speaker as well as the season winner of SABC 2's entrepreneurship competition, Game Plan (2019)

Reach out to Nomsa

• Facebook: Nomsa Chauke
• Instagram: Nomsa_Chauke
• Cell: 0789787302
• Email: nomsachauke36@gmail.com
• Web: www.nuradarbusiness.co.za

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on sales.

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Tags: Sales , Guest Post