According to a recent survey, 86% of salespeople ask the wrong questions. The inevitable result of this is that they end up missing valuable opportunities and wasting customer time, all the while appearing unprofessional. While this statistic may be alarming at first, consider that according to a survey of 4,000 sales professionals, 80% of the business is brought in by 20% of the sales force. What do the 20% have in common? They have a process and apply themselves with diligence.

Part of that process includes an effective questioning strategy to uncover needs and discover motives. There are numerous strategies that can be applied to the questioning process, but I have found the most effective strategy to be what I call the Moses Questioning Strategy. There were seven questions Moses wanted answered before they crossed the Jordan and invaded Canaan. The implications of the questions are far-reaching, and application to the selling process is remarkable.

Just recently I had the opportunity to customize our training program for a $9 million service company in the Akron, Ohio area. At first the response to the questioning sequence was hesitant, but as we worked through it, the lights came on and there was 100% buy-in from the sales team and management.

Later, one of the reps emailed me this message, "By using the questioning techniques, I have gained more information than I ever thought possible. The information seemed to flow out of the prospects when I applied the questioning techniques . . . After two days of training, the techniques are already paying dividends and I have tremendous expectations."

What most sales people need is better information gathering skills, not better presentation or closing skills. When you are armed with the right information, you can more effectively match your product or service to the need of the potential client and closing the sale is a natural outcome.

The Awkward Close

Do you want to know why closing the sale is such an awkward and difficult thing for most sales people? It's because they haven't earned the right to close the sale! How do most sales training programs respond to poor closing ratios? By teaching the "weak closers" another series of strong arm, manipulative techniques meant to arm wrestle an uncertain and unprepared prospect into submission. This is foolishness at best and without doubt unbiblical!

Do you want to know how to get your salespeople comfortable with closing sales - lots of sales? They must learn to listen. To be a good listener, they must learn to question. To be a good questioner, they need a proven model.

The Strategy that Works

The proven model is the Moses Questioning Strategy adapted from the highly successful Canaanite conquest recorded in the Old Testament. The final four steps to the strategy are as follows:

#4 Aside from knowing the general lay of the land, Moses wanted to discover whether the land was good or bad. In sales it is important to qualify a prospect before presenting the benefits of doing business with your firm. What are some basic questions you can ask that will automatically rule the prospect in or out as a potential client? Many companies have certain guidelines as to with whom they will do business and prospects need to meet those criteria. Do you have such criteria for your business? If not, establish the basic criteria and build that into your questioning strategy.

#5 Moses also wanted to know if the land was fertile or barren. Several applications follow from this. First of all, has the prospect's way of doing things been productive for them, relative to the potential available from your product or service, or has there approach so far been unfruitful?

Secondly, has the competition's strategy been working for them? They may have been using your competitor's product or service for several years, but are they really any better off? More importantly, how much better off could they be, especially if they were utilizing your product or service? What you are really looking for is untapped potential (in the form of unmet need) that your product or service can fill. Every company is different (hence our customized training programs), but in your business, consider what questions you could ask that would measure the fruitfulness (effectiveness) of your prospects' current way of doing things. It would be important to ask the prospects how they measure results relative to the need you're addressing.

Thirdly, what is the benefit for prospective clients if we can help them achieve the results they are looking for? Asking the prospect to articulate the benefits of achieving the desired results - instead of simply telling them - is important. People usually believe 100% of what they themselves say and significantly less of what a sales person tells them. That's why I always say, "Never tell prospects something you can ask them!"

#6 Moses wanted to know, "Are the cities they inhabit like tents or strongholds?" The implications here are far reaching: is your competition deeply entrenched and committed to staying or are they likely to leave with little resistance? Are they thinking short term or long term? Is their position within my prospect's business defensible or vulnerable? Is my prospect thinking short term (tents) or long term (walled cities). Are the solutions that my prospect is using to address their present needs a band-aid or a long term fix? Have they thought it through? Some questions you could ask in regard to how thorough their thinking is include: "What do you like about your current system? Why is that important to you? If you owned a company that made these kind of systems and you could improve the kind of system you currently have, what improvements would you make? Why is that important to you? What happens when that happens? Can you give me an example of when that happened? How often does that occur? What kind of economic impact does each incident have? What are you planning on doing about that?"

#7 The seventh question Moses had was, "Is there any wood?" Like the other questions there are many related applications, but one of the main uses of wood is for building. So, ask your prospect about their goals, their vision, and their dreams.

What you are really looking for is a way to come alongside them and help them reach their goals. But you can't do this if you don't know them, and most salespeople never take the time to find out the prospect's vision for the future and how their product or service can help them get where they're wanting to go. You might consider asking the following questions: "Where do you see the market going? What are the corporate goals for the coming year? What are your department goals? Which of these goals is most important and why? If the company reaches those goals, how will you be impacted? What happens if those objectives are not met this year, and is not meeting those objectives a serious concern?"

After getting all these questions answered, Moses insisted on one last thing. He wanted his spies to "bring back some of the fruit of the land." All too often, sales people leave a prospect's office with no clearly defined next step. Sometimes that step is a purchase order and delivery schedule. Sometimes it's a down payment. Other times it's a scheduled call back or phone appointment.

The point is this: never leave the call without agreeing with the prospect as to what is the next step. Move the prospect down the sales continuum at their own pace and gain agreement as to where you are on that continuum, what the next step looks like, and when it will take place.

If you apply this questioning sequence as part of an overall planned sales process, your presentations will be far more effective - resulting in a much higher closing ratio, better customer relations, and you'll be a better witness in the marketplace.