Someone who is listening: 2.
Define what the meeting means for the customer.
- shows an interest in the subject
- uses body language that shows they are following
what is being said
- notes the content of what is being said
- notes what is being left unsaid
- asks questions if they are not sure about something
- lets the other person finish speaking
- has a positive attitude
- puts him- or herself in the other person’s shoes
- puts his or her prejudices aside
- takes notes.
Interview technique
The questions you ask are an important part of any meeting
with a customer. To get the most out of customer meetings,
9 2 Benefit
you should combine three elements:
1. ask good questions
2. listen actively
3. make notes and follow up on the customer’s answers.
It is a good idea to be conscious of your interview technique,
establish the right atmosphere and seek agreement about what
you aim to achieve from the conversation.
Don’t feel that you have to follow all of these points rigorously,
but make a habit of using them so they form an instinctive
reaction when you do need them.
Advice on interview technique
1. Always tell your customer:
- what you want to achieve
- how you intend to achieve it.
3. Define why you are asking particular questions.
4. Remember that you are there to discuss the customer’s
needs/wishes, not your own.
5. Establish agreement on common objectives.
Use ‘Are we agreed?’ as the basis for proceeding.
6. Don’t start with the sale. Define needs first; then propose
solutions. This lets the customer relax so that he or she
will be open-minded and in a better frame of mind to
listen to you.
7. If the customer asks questions, keep your answers brief.
Say you will expand later. Don’t get sidetracked.
8. Nothing is ‘normal’ or ‘routine’. We are all human.
9. If there has been prior contact with the customer, start
with a short summary of that.
10. Use a form or a blank sheet of paper.
11. Be prepared. Check out your customer’s background
and sales record. This will make you less nervous,
which will make it easier for you to smile, look
enthusiastic and radiate confidence.
12. Don’t interrupt. If you ask questions, never answer
them yourself.
Remember! Silence is golden, speech
is silver, and we can sometimes talk
ourselves out of an order.
13. A leading or closed question (for example: ‘Do you want
to sell this house?’) can move things along if the customer
is uncommunicative. Avoid trade talk or technical jargon.

14. Don’t spend too much time on details or minor matters.

Keep the whole deal in your mind’s eye.

15. Don’t talk down to the customer. Instead of saying:

‘You don’t have any export business, do you?’, try:
‘How big is your market share in exports?’ or
‘What proportion of your turnover goes to export?’

16. Never say: ‘We’ll have to…’. Try saying: ‘No. If you
want the best possible…’.

17. Smoking during a meeting is never a good idea, especially

if the person you are meeting is a non-smoker.

9 3 Benefit
18. If you are faced with unexpected answers or situations,
keep your cool.

19. When the meeting ends, ask the customer if they want
to add anything. This shows that you are committed.

20. Finish with a summary, preferably noting down the

important points and giving the customer a copy.
 Questions
Questions are the most important part of the sales conversation.
Ask questions naturally, so the customer doesn’t feel they are
being interrogated. If your questions are to be natural, you must
be natural, so present your questions in a way that suits you and
your style of selling.

1. Information search 4. Decision and close

Understand the customer’s

Get the customer
9 4 Benefit

thoughts and ideas

to recognize new
opportunities through
Analyze the
your thoughts and ideas
customer’s needs

2. Exploration 3.Challenge

Let your questions do the work

Illustration 17: Letting your questions do the work means
using the right framework of questions to achieve the goals
you have set for yourself. Preparation is therefore vital.
Closed questions
Closed questions can be used to control very talkative people,
but you can also use them when you are faced with someone
who is hard to get talking or who has difficulties explaining
their answers.
Closed questions can be direct (‘Can…?’, ‘Will…?’, ‘Has…?’,
‘Is…?’). Direct closed questions are questions that can only be
answered ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘maybe’. They are often used to confirm
decisions and gain acceptance.
You can use leading questions to get a positive response, but
take care. Excessive use of leading questions may sound like
manipulation. For example: ‘Wouldn’t you agree that…?’
or: ‘Do you also think that…?’.
If the customer has not yet made up their mind whether to
say yes or no, you might want to use a question that offers
alternatives. Never give more than two alternatives at a time
(‘Would you like this one or that one?’).
Open questions
Open questions get the customer talking freely. When you use
open questions, take care that the conversation doesn’t move
off the subject. If you use a lot of open questions, prepare
a framework in advance and stick to it. Stay focused on the
objectives of the questions and conversation.
Information questions - the short ‘wh’ questions beginning with
words like ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘which’ - give you a chance
to find out what motivates the customer and what
will meet their needs.
If appropriate, use amplification and specification questions
(such as ‘How?’ ‘How much?’ and ‘When?’ ) to elicit more
details and go into more depth.
Use amplification and substantiation questions beginning with
‘why’ to substantiate situations, but bear in mind that it is
sometimes impolite to use a ‘why’ question. Never use a ‘why’
question when you are dealing with objections.
Five types of question
In any conversation, five types of question are available to you,
each with its own objective:
1. information questions
2. research and hacker questions
3. interpretative questions
4. challenging questions
5. decision questions.
Information questions
9 5 Benefit
Use information questions to seek information about the
customer’s circumstances. You want to get the customer to
talk about the advantages and disadvantages of their current
situation and the products or services they are using at the
moment. You will use the information you gather by asking
these questions when you present your solution and its
benefits later in the conversation.
Open information questions
By seeking information, you get the customer to focus on what
he or she wants. Use open questions - the ‘what/how’ questions
- to get the customer to talk as much as possible, for example:
- How much do you use…?
- How often do you order…?
- What are your user requirements for…?
- How do you…?
- What experience do you have with…?
- How important is…?
 Closed information questions
Sometimes, when you are looking for very precise answers,
it is appropriate to ask closed questions. Examples of closed
information questions are:
- Do you use… product or…?
- Do you buy in… or…?
- Is the environmental aspect important to you?
Research questions
Use research questions to draw out more in-depth information
from the customer by using information they have already given
you. Think of yourself as a scientist researching the way the
customer thinks, in order to discover what his or her core needs
are. Don’t get too hung up on your own way of thinking – if the
customer isn’t interested in your ideas, put them aside and try to
find another link.
9 6 Benefit
Research questions can be difficult, because the customer does
not always see the information in the same way as you do, so
give the customer time to think about them.
Open research questions
The object of research questions is to get the customer to
provide in-depth information, so these will generally be open
questions. Start with words like ‘who’ or ‘what’, and base
your questions on information you learned earlier in the
conversation. For example:
- You mentioned earlier that you have a requirement
for… How do you ensure that?
- With production in three shifts, how do you carry
out maintenance on…?
- What are your quality control requirements for…?
- What is the connection between… and…?
- When the product has to… what does this mean
for your supplier?
Closed research questions
When you are researching links between different facts
about the customer, closed questions are a useful way to
clear something up quickly. For example:
- Is it important for you that the product can
both… and…?
- Is there any connection between… and…?
- You mentioned… Has this anything to do with…?
- Have you requirements for both… and…?
Hacker questions
Just as a hacker accesses databases to find information that is
otherwise unavailable to them, ‘hacker’ questions are a way to
discover in-depth information about the customer’s needs.
In a sales situation, two minds are interacting with each other.
In the customer’s mind there are certain needs, and in the
salesperson’s mind there is a certain amount of knowledge.
The best way to get the customer to say ‘yes’ is to use your
knowledge to meet their needs. By posing hacker questions
about things the customer has already told you, you open up
new possibilities for the customer. You know it has worked
when the customer says: ‘Oh, can we do that? I didn’t realize.’
 Customer’s Salesperson’s
mind mind
Knowledge
Need
Wish
Hacking into the customers mind
Illustration 18: ‘Hacking’ into the customer’s mind brings
out further needs, making it easier for you to be the
professional dream-maker and to build a bridge between
needs and intentions by selling benefits.
When you use hacker questions, remember to talk for a third of
the time and listen for two-thirds. Give the customer the chance
to tell you about their needs and wishes.
Never start to propose solutions before the customer has had
time to define their needs. No matter how right you are, the
customer needs to realize for him- or herself that the solution
you are proposing is tailor-made for them and their company.
Interpretative questions
Use interpretative questions to make sure you have understood
the customer properly. All too often, the salesperson assumes
they have understood the customer and doesn’t check. Asking
questions about the information you have been given shows you
are interested. You might also find that your understanding is
quite different to that of the customer.
Use interpretative questions every time you want to check you
have understood something correctly. You will find you often
need to ask an interpretative question when the customer uses
an adjective in his answer – customers can mean all sorts of
things when they use words like ‘fast’, ‘easy’, ‘safe’, ‘flexible’
or ‘cheap’.
Open interpretative questions
An open interpretative question is usually the best way to get
the customer to explain what they mean. For example:
- You said it was fast. How fast?
- You use a lot of… How many?
- You said your supplier should be…
What do you mean by that?
- … is very important for you. How do you define…?
- What does that mean?
Closed interpretative questions
When there are only a few possible answers, or where you
reckon you have understood the information correctly,
try asking closed interpretative questions. These make the
conversation run more smoothly and stop the customer
9 7 Benefit
feeling as if they are under interrogation. For example:
- Does that mean that… is…?
- Have I understood this correctly, that…?
- So that means…?
Does that mean that…?
- By… do you mean…?
Challenging questions
Use challenging questions to bring new ideas or concepts into
the sales conversation. The purpose is to make the customer
look at an issue from an angle that suits the product you want
to sell.
Before challenging your customer with questions like these, you
must have a deep insight into their business and their in-house
procedures. Before you can ask questions that are appropriate,
you will also need in-depth knowledge of your own product,
and much more than just its advantages and benefits.
 All too often, salespeople don’t challenge the customer because
they think the customer already knows everything there is to
know, but that is not always the case. It is often the ability to
challenge the customer’s way of thinking that separates the good
salespeople from the less good. Customers find it inspiring to
talk to a salesperson who has insight into their business and can
spot new opportunities. Everyone wants to talk to salespeople
who can help them develop their business.
Open challenging questions
By using challenging questions, you get the customer to think
in new ways and proffer their own opinions. They work best if
they are open questions:
- What would it mean for… if…?
- What influence would it have if…?
- How would it affect… if…?
9 8 Benefit
- Based on…, how would it be for you if…?
- If we suppose…, what… would it result in?
Closed challenging questions
There is a role for closed questions when you are leading the
customer. Just take care you don’t get the customer to reject
a good idea without thinking it over:
- Would it make any difference for you if…?
- What about…?
- Is there any chance that… would lead to…?
- Have you considered the advantages of…?
Decision questions
Usually used at the end of a conversation when it’s time for
the customer to make a decision, these questions steer the
conversation towards your objective for the meeting and ensure
that you are both agreed on the decisions being made.
Closed decision questions
Decision questions are usually closed questions, for example:
- Would you want that delivered on… or on…?
- Are we agreed that…?
- Supposing you order…?
- If we can meet…, have we got an order?
- Besides yourself, is there anyone else who needs to…
before we can make a deal?
Open decision questions
In a situation where you feel you would put the customer under
too much pressure if you used closed decision questions, try us-
ing open questions. For example:
- When would you like…?
- What would be needed for you to be able to…?
- If we were to enter into an agreement, how would
you envisage…?
- How would it work if…?
If you use open decision questions, be careful that the
conversation doesn’t go round in circles – if it does, there
is a danger of you losing control of it and the meeting ending
without a decision at all.
Buying signals
Buying signals are the green lights you encounter as you travel
along the sales highway. They are the little questions and com-
ments that signal a customer is interested, so you need to pay
close attention to them. That is why it is so important to listen
actively.