The Questioning Process: Identifying Missing Information

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by Miller Heiman

We say questioning "process" rather than questioning "techniques." The distinction is crucial. Every sales training program you've ever seen teaches what the trainers call "questioning." But it's not really questioning at all. The "questioning skills" that most programs teach are really only a series of manipulative techniques designed to make statements sound like questions, and to get the customer's name on the dotted line no matter what he says or thinks or needs.

You know the kind of "questions" we're talking about. The rhetorical come-ons like "Wouldn't you agree that's a good deal, Mr. Jones?"--where the only acceptable answer is Yes. The false-choice trial closes like "Would you like to sign the contract today or this Friday?" And the whole game of "asking" for the order--which isn't asking at all, but only a sophisticated form of manipulation. In traditional "questioning" training, you learn how to force answers. That's the last thing we want to encourage.

The point of asking good questions, as we define them, is never to "rephrase" a client's resistance or to "redirect" the course of an interview or to put the customer in a position where he's only allowed to say Yes. It's for you, the seller, to find out something that you don't already know. Rather than showing you techniques for tricking the buyer, we give you a field-tested process for getting the information you need to bring your sales to mutually satisfying conclusions.

There's an irony here. Salespeople who are primarily interested in "asking for the order" often find that getting the Yes answer they want is an uphill battle all the way. On the other hand, when you use an effective questioning process, you often don't even have to ask for the order: the order happens almost automatically as a result of the other questions you've asked.

A good questioning process enables you to maximize your understanding of the customer's situation as he or she perceives it. Working with this understanding, and using an effective questioning process we'll outline, you will be able to do something that the traditional "go for the order" type of questioning actually prevents you from doing: you will be able to create a fluid communication process between you and each of your customers, so that both of you always have the information you need to get yourselves, mutually, to win-win.

The beginning of our questioning process is to identify those areas of the sale where you are currently lacking information. There are a number of areas that are typically "information poor" for sellers and we'll present them here, as an informal "laundry list."

Step 1: Do I need information about Buying Influences? When we use the term Buying Influence, we mean something quite precise. It is defined as anyone who can have a positive or negative impact on your selling--whatever his position, whatever his company, and whatever his role in a given sale. The person you're calling on is one, but only one, Buying Influence. To determine whether you know all the Buying Influences for the sales call you're working with as a model, ask yourself:

Who has final approval authority for the proposal I'm presenting?

What person or persons in the buying organization will the product or service I'm selling, on their actual jobs?

Who will be judging my proposal?

Do I have a guide--that is, someone who can provide me reliable information--for this sale?

With regard to the person I'm going to be calling on next: is this person's degree of influence in the sale?

Step 2: Do I need information about buyer needs? Each of the various people involved in a sale will, of course, have his or her own needs and desires regarding your proposal. With regard to the person you're going to be calling on in your next sales call, ask:

What are the specific, measurable, tangible results that he or she expects to gain from what I'm selling?

What are his or her personal values and attitudes regarding my current proposal? In other words, how does this person feel about what I'm trying to do?

What is this person's perceived degree of risk involved?

Step 3: Do I need information about the customer's buying procedures? Since the purchasing structures and individual buying procedures of different companies vary dramatically, and since they may even change from time to time within the same company, you need to find out as much as you can up front about how decisions are being made, right now. Ask yourself, therefore, what information you need to find out about:

The money that needs to be allocated for your sale.

The urgency of your proposal to the company or customer--that is, whether or not your timing is right.

"Political" factors in the buying organization.

Any other factors that may be currently beyond your control.

Step 4: Do I need information about possible new players? One of the danger areas in which lack of information can always undermine a seller's chances of success is the appearance of new players, or the rearrangement of existing players. To identify potential problems here, ask:

Have there been any recent changes in the Buying Influences for this sale?

Is there a new face on the scene, and if so, do I understand his or her possible influence on the sale?

Has there been reorganization recently in the buying organization--no matter how seemingly "trivial" or "irrelevant" to my proposal?

Am I certain that the person giving final approval for this sale has not changed?

Step 5: Do I need information about the competition? Since you don't sell in a vacuum and because your customer can always be influenced by your competition, you need to ask:

Who are the competitors for this sale?

What are their primary strengths and weaknesses?

What is the price differential--and is price a major factor to the customer?

What is the availability of the principal competitors' products?

What are their post-sale service capabilities?

How are they positioned with the customer: Are they new players, running neck and neck with me, or firmly entrenched?

Step 6: Do I need information about customer "resistance"? We put resistance in quotation marks because we have found over and over that, as one business executive put it to us, "People don't resist their own ideas." They only resist ideas that somebody else is trying to foist on them-- ideas that they don't "own." If you're experiencing resistance, you need to ask:

Is this person confused about what I'm trying to do?

Does he have a clear and accurate picture of my capabilities?

If I'm being deluged with "objections," is there an identifiable reason for the customer's contentiousness?

Is his disagreement personal, product-related, or both?

Is it realistic to suppose that I can turn around this person at this time?

7: Do I need information about my own uncertainties or worries? One of the sales professional's most deadly errors is to ignore the "grey areas" in a sales picture or presentation in the vain hope that the problems will go away if you don't think about them too much. We ask you to be particularly attentive to "surfacing gaps" in this area. If you're feeling at all uncertain or worried about an upcoming sales call, ask yourself:

Is there an uncovered base here? That is, is there a Buying Influence for this sale that I haven't identified, or about whom I feel uncomfortable?

Does the sales picture include a strong, antagonistic anti-sponsor?

What's my credibility level with the buying organization, and with the Buying Influence I'll meet in my next call?

What's the real fit, not the one I'd like, between my product or service and the customer's needs?

What are the areas in the sale where I could profit from having more information? Or, to put it negatively, in what areas is my lack of information contributing to my uncertainty?

To a certain degree, this last question that we're suggesting you ask yourself sums up the whole enterprise. The whole point of going through a laundry list like this one, and in doing so before every sales call, is to make clear to yourself where you are missing the information you need in order to manage the sale well. The first order of business on every sales call should be to seek out that information.

You do that, naturally enough, by asking your customer questions.