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One of the most important skills we need as sellers is the ability to ask the right questions at the right time. Think of questions like tools that allow us to uncover information, learn more about the person we’re talking with, find out their needs, and ultimately help them reach the product that would fill those needs. And, while doing all of that heavy lifting, they deliver the added benefit of building relationships!

(If you get stuck, imagine that you were talking with a representative from your favorite brand and what questions you would ask them. Pretend that you are doing business with a company you love, for example: Nintendo, Epic Games (owner of Fortnight), Louis Vuitton or Nike.)

The purpose of this tool is to help you capture and organize your best questions, and to use them to listen at all three levels.

Begin to collect all five types of questions with a particular focus on collecting the most rare species—impact questions.

Listening Beyond the Surface

Most people listen at level one—listening to respond.

And, as our conversation partners are speaking, too often we are formulating our response rather than listening and absorbing what they are saying. Use the questions you design over the following pages to go deeper and listen at all three levels.

1. Listening to respond
2. Listening to how people feel
3. Listening for why it matters to them

It takes discipline to pause and resist formulating a response and skill to use different types of questions to move with agility through these levels and build a deeper connection.

Asking the Right Questions

There are five main types of questions that help us listen and understand. Each type of question plays a different role in a sales conversation, so make sure you pay attention to each different one. Write down several of each type of question.

Discovery Questions

The usual suspects. Gain information. Understand functional needs. Discovery questions are the workhorses of sales meetings. Their main job is to gain information and understand functional needs so we keep the conversation and our sales process moving ahead. They find out a lot. They tend to be easier to answer, and thus they are efficient in getting lots of information quickly.

Here are examples of several discovery questions:

• What are the main reasons people do business with you and your company?
• As you think about tackling this challenge, what are your main needs?
• What do you most worry about in conjunction with this project?
• What does success look like for this effort?
• Why are you addressing this issue now?

Write down your top 5 discovery questions:

1. What is your current goal?
2. What stands in the way of this goal?
3. How do you plan to solve this?
4. What problems do you see in the future?
5. How do you suppose I could help?

Qualifying Questions

Determine importance. Gain buy-in. Understand whether this conversation is worth having.

Qualifying questions often come very early in the sales process and never stop. Use them to determine whether the prospect can - and will - do business. A yes or a no is what we want, and we want to get to the bottom of their plan. The answers to these questions are mostly factual and can go quickly.

Here are examples of several qualifying questions:

• How will you establish a budget for this initiative?
• In what timeframe are you hoping to secure a solution?
• Where does this project fall on your priority list?
• What does the decision process look like?
• How will this decision be made?

Write down 5 qualifying questions:

1. Who is involved in your team?
2. What other goals may you have?
3. How cost-effective is your planned solution?
4. Who else does the solution involve?
5. What will happen if this problem is not solved?

Clarifying Questions

Seek to understand. Gain confirmation. Understand context for decision.

Clarifying questions are different from discovery and qualifying questions, and thus they are powerful for a different reason. As the name suggests, these questions gain clarity where things may be blurry or vague or simply not well thought out.

Here are examples of several clarifying questions:

• What I hear you saying is that you are moving aggressively towards this decision, is that right?
• It sounds like the most critical priority for you right now is cost savings, is that right?
• I’m sorry, I’m not sure I understand your perspective. Could you explain that again?

Write down 3 clarifying questions:

1. Please explain the cause of the problem.
2. Please explain the effects of the problem.
3. Please explain your thought process of the solution.

Follow-Up Questions

Demonstrate listening. Gain perspective. Understand full picture.

Follow-up questions are like mirrors... demonstrating that we are listening. They gain perspective and help you understand the full picture of what’s going on.

Here are examples of several follow-up questions:

• When you say that would slow the company’s growth, do you mean immediately or long term?
• Why is this important right now?
• Why do you say that?
• How will that work?

Write down 3 follow-up questions:

1. What are your plans after the problem is solved?
2. How do you plan on preventing this?
3. Are there any affects of this problem still unsolved?

Impact Questions

Unusual. Gain insights. Understand social and emotional needs.

Impact questions go deeper and broader than other forms of questions. They are our most powerful tool to question our going-in assumptions and reveal what’s really going on. Why? Because they are used to gain insights and uncover other types of needs that go beyond functional needs. Impact questions often reveal social and emotional needs of our customers because they cause people to really think.

Here are examples of several impact questions: