Too often, salespeople fail to think of their time with a prospect as an interview to find out whether the prospect qualifies to do business with their company. In selling, questions are the instrument to conduct a qualifying examination of the prospect. Salespeople who are too focused on their pitch end up dominating the time with a prospect. As a result, for every hour spent in front of a prospect, five minutes is spent selling the product or service and 55 minutes saying things that might actually be buying it back. The goal should be to get the prospect to do 80 percent of the talking, while you do only 20 percent.
Most companies are no longer in the business of selling products but of providing solutions.
This is fine, except that often salespeople try to tell the prospect the solution before they even understand the problem. The salesperson must ask questions up front to get complete understanding of the prospect's perspective. They will begin a lengthy speech on quality or value, or they might respond with a concession or price reduction. If customers can get a discount by merely making a statement, they will reason that they should not buy before trying something more powerful to get an even better price. Knowing whether money has been allocated for a project can help distinguish someone who is ready to solve a problem from someone who is merely fishing around.