Not just a bad question, a dumb question. It shows the customer you didn’t take the time to do some research. It also doesn’t start you on the path to solving anything and makes the customer immediately go on the defensive. It is possible, maybe even probable that the person you are talking to was the person who decided on the solution you are selling against.

Show some value.

Start with an opening question that gets the customer to comment on a pain point that you specialize in solving.

Example:

Say you sell Web Filtering. Compare these two openings:

“What are you currently using for web filtering? Oh, can I give you a quote on a competing product?”

“What would happen if I installed a web monitor on your network, let it collect data for a week, and then showed the report on the evening news?”

The later clearly engages the customer in a smart conversation, the former makes you look like the monkey salesman that you are.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 15th, 2006 at 10:00 am and is filed under How-To. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.