Don't Assume Your Way Out of a Sale: Ask New Information Questions

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by Stephen E. Heiman, Diane Sanchez with Tad Tuleja

One type of question that should be asked on every sales call is the New Information Question. Usually, these questions follow up and build on what we call Confirmation Questions. Confirmation Questions are used to validate and verify the accuracy of the information you have or think to be true about a client. New Information Questions ask for even more clarification.

The purpose of New Information Questions is threefold: 1) to clarify your understanding of what your customer is trying to accomplish, fix, or avoid; 2) to update your information; and 3) to resolve your information discrepancies by filling in the gaps.

Here's an example of a Confirmation Question being followed up by a New Information Question: "what's been happening in your current operation that you'd like to see not happening?" and "Would you describe what a good service contract would look like to you?" Other examples might include questions like the following:

How do you intend to approach that problem?"

"When do you see this decision happening?"

"Where is the project likely to be situated?"

As these examples suggest, there's a familiarity between our recommendation that you ask New Information Questions and the traditional journalistic advice that a lead paragraph focus on the "Five W's": the who, what, when, where and why of the situation. In formulating New Information Questions, we advise you to use the same key words—with one important exception. Instead of asking "why," we say you should ask "how" or "how much" or "how many." "Why" can be useful as a kind of second–level probe, to follow up on an insufficiently answered New Information Question; but as an opener it can be confrontational, and it seldom gets you the information you need.

New Information Questions that begin with the key words who, what, when, where and how make up only one subset of this question type, however. They are what we call explicit questions since they ask the customer to provide very specific new information: "Where will the new plant be located?" "How many units are processed each month?" A second subset includes what we call exploratory questions.

Exploratory questions invite the customer to explore, at her own level of detail, an area where you need more information. They begin with key words like tell, explain, demonstrate, and show. Like explicit questions, these questions seek further information, but they do so in a more open, expansive manner. To understand the distinction, look at two sample questions posed previously. The first one ("What's been happening . . . ?") is an explicit question that begins with one of the journalist's opening key words. The second one ("Would you describe . . . ?") is an exploratory question that begins with a modified form of the key words explain or show.

Since people are sometimes hesitant to being told "Show me," we suggest a technique that makes exploratory New Information Questions sound less confrontational. You can mute the perceived aggressiveness of a question—and this goes for any question, not just New Information Questions—by phrasing it indirectly, by employing such structures as "I'd like to . . . " or "I'd appreciate it if you would . . . " or simply "Could you . . . ?" Our second question is such an example. To a customer who is sensitive to being told to do something, the expression "I'd appreciate hearing more" may get you better results than the direct "Tell me more."

Use New Information Questions whenever you discover that your are missing specific information regarding the current status of the sale. They're a great way to gain critical information and move you one step closer to a sale.