Probing Techniques - It's How You Ask It!

This post wraps up our discussion in the area of discovery, namely that this all-important stage of the sales process brings together the need for several sales skills:

• Product knowledge
• Listening skills
• Business acumen
• Competitor knowledge
• Probing techniques

With well-honed skills in these areas, you’ll minimize your sales cycle, greatly improve your chances of winning and truly satisfy your new client. Today, we close with probing techniques.

When you ask a prospect a question, how should it be phrased? The science to this practice suggests the idea of open vs. closed probes. An open probe:

• Encourages the prospect to talk at length
• Starts with “Tell me about….”, “How does….”, “Why do….”
• Gives the best chance of finding a need
• Should be controlled

Open probes sit in contrast to closed probes. Closed probes, typically used later in the sales process:

• Encourages a yes or no answer from the client
• Ends with, “Doesn’t it? “Shouldn’t it?”, “Isn’t it?”
• Sets your proposed solution up for a close

Open probes are your best bet during discovery. Get the prospect to elaborate, to talk. At this stage of the sales process, “you talk, you lose.” A tip I’ve offered my sales pro’s at this stage has been, “If you need to take a swig of bottled water to sooth your throat during or after discovery, you talked too much!”

If your prospect is talking, you are more apt to find hidden challenges that you can solve with your product or service. If you’re talking, you’re feature-dumping. But, be careful. Sometimes people can talk and talk and talk! I’ve left many a discovery meeting, only to look at the watch and proclaim, “we just spent two hours in there and did nothing to advance this opportunity.” Guide your prospect politely, if they are taking you off course. And remember, for many astute buyers, it’s a deliberate tactic to talk and talk!!

What about the art of probing? It’s all in how you ask it, isn’t it? Absolutely it is! An example I hear of time and time again, is the sales pro-wannabe who suggests, “I can’t ask about the competition, if I bring it up, they’ll be more likely to look!” Well guess what, they’re already looking! And there are ways to “bring it up” without getting the typical “I can’t say” response or offending the prospect. Try these:

• “As you survey the alternative offerings out there, what do you like best? What don’t you like?”
• If you’ve purchased a product/service like mine before, what sorts of attributes of that product or service were important to you?”

• “If you were the CEO, today, where might you rank my product/service and why?”

Finally, think carefully about word choices. Certain words can create an offended and/or disinterested prospect. Here are some examples:

• Instead of “pain”, try “opportunities”
• Instead of “other decision-makers”, try “other stakeholders”
• Instead of “difficult”, try “challenging”
• Instead of “you’re right”, try “I understand”

HUMOR: I once saw a thank-you letter back to a prospect, after a discovery meeting thanking the prospect for the meeting and agreed with the prospect on every objection brought about by the prospect. Then, the author launched into a description of the wonderful attributes of his product. Obviously, this was an attempt by the sales pro-wannabe to be “agreeable and appreciative” to the prospect. Right intent, but wrong method. Ugh. Be very careful where you use the word “agree” and “you’re right”. Go back to an earlier post that touts the value of empathy over agreement!!