Knowing how to ask probing questions is an important part of any sales prospecting effort. But you have to make your question count. It’s all about mapping the direction you want the phone call to take, and that means preparing in advance for how your prospect might reply to different questions. Picking the right probing […]
Knowing how to ask probing questions is an important part of any sales prospecting effort. But you have to make your question count. It’s all about mapping the direction you want the phone call to take, and that means preparing in advance for how your prospect might reply to different questions. Picking the right probing questions for sales outreach before you even dial their number will help you steer the conversation in a way that ultimately leads to a close.
Understanding probing questions for sales
Probing questions come into play once the sales process moves past the “opener” of a cold call or in later calls if the prospect is still hesitant after hearing the pitch. They allow a rep to discover more about the prospect’s goals and to lead the discussion in the direction they want.
By asking probing questions, you stay in “active mode” while keeping the prospect in the spotlight. The alternative is to be reactive, which in some respects means that you are not in control of the conversation. Of course, prospects should have questions, and you should have the answers. But, when you manage the discussion, you’re in a better position to finish it the way you want.
Why probing questions are important
In a sales prospecting campaign, you are by definition connecting with someone who doesn’t know you or your brand. Probing questions allow you to:
- Get a feel for the deal. Probing questions are meant to give you a sense of what the prospect needs and how that benefits you. Let’s say that your conversation touches on what a great quarter the prospect just had – their good fortune might turn into your sales win because they need to expand.
- Imply the value of your product. For example, if you ask “how’s your deal flow doing?” you are essentially stating that you can help with that.
- Establish a connection. B2B sales is often about a good relationship just as much as it is about a value proposition. Probing questions can prolong the conversation and help build rapport.
Different types of probing questions
Every salesperson will have various probing “tools” that they use in different situations, and they might call them something different. However, probing questions for sales tend to fall into one of five categories:
Open-ended
The purpose of open-ended questions is to encourage a prospect to provide an extensive reply, which gives you more information about their needs and hesitations than a more defined query would. A typical example is “What barriers do you face in meeting your objectives?”
Closed-ended
This kind of question can be asked when you want a simple and definitive answer. Basically, you are looking for a yes or no reply, or something that is similarly short. A closed-ended question would be “do you currently work with a sales intelligence vendor?”
Loaded
Loaded questions are a way to touch on sensitive topics or to nudge a prospect into admitting something that gives you an advantage. For example, let’s say that you’ve used data enrichment and technographics to discover that a prospect does not have a sales intelligence platform. You can ask, “I’ve seen companies in your industry ramp up deals dramatically with sales intelligence. What systems do you have in place to match their closing rates?”
Recall
Another way of triggering an answer that you want to hear is through recall questions. These involve getting the prospect to think about an experience (or lack thereof) that they have had and how it reflects on your value proposition. For example, if a prospect seems to doubt the relevance of your product, you can ask, “When was the last time you demoed my product, and what did you think of it?”
Process
This type of question is about expectations – what does the prospect believe they can get out of your product, and how would the resulting purchase decision process work from their end? A process question often comes towards the end of a conversation, when you are letting the prospect know exactly what you are selling and how the sale will proceed. For instance, a process question might be “If I can deliver X, how soon can you guys make a decision?”
Top 10 must-ask probing sales questions
Now that we’ve looked at different kinds of probing questions, let’s review how they can be used to go from the A to Z of closing a deal.
Getting a prospect to sign on the dotted line during your first conversation almost never happens. That’s because purchase decisions go through a process that takes time (unless you are dealing with a super small business). In light of this, the following subjects will probably be addressed over several phone calls and many emails. Nevertheless, asking the right questions at the right stage will help to close more deals, more often.
“Our [product] has led to some of my clients closing X% more deals. Is that something you’d be interested in?”
This is a leading question – who wouldn’t be interested in such a bump-up? By starting off the conversation with a brief value proposition, you are getting their attention and explaining what you do at the same time.
“What kind of challenges do you face today meeting your goals?”
An open-ended question allows the prospect to give you important information about specific problems they have so that you can prepare to explain how you solve them.
“Is a [your product type] something that your organization would consider?”
There’s no point in continuing a conversation if there’s no chance of a sale, even if the prospect seems interested. This process question is meant to discover if the prospect’s organization has the budget and intention to make a buy.
“Are you the purchasing decision-maker in your department?”
Before investing effort in the pitch, make sure that you are talking to the correct person. This closed-ended query should get you a yes or no answer.
“What’s been your experience so far with [your product type]?”
Once you’ve confirmed that you are talking to somebody with purchasing potential, it’s time to discover more about each other through the ping-pong of a sales conversation. At some point you’ll make your pitch, but exactly when depends on your instinct. Getting to the point where you’ll both feel comfortable with a pitch can happen after warming up with an open-ended question.
“I’d like to explain how you can boost your current conversion rates by up to X times, do you have a few minutes for that?”
This is a combination of a closed-ended and a loaded question. It would be difficult for a prospect to say no to a few more minutes of discussion that might really benefit them.
“I can clear up a lot of your concerns with a quick demo, would that be OK?”
If the prospect has a lot of questions about your value proposition, sometimes the easiest thing to do is provide a demo that settles their concerns and sells your product even more. The key here is to maintain control, in this case with a closed-ended question, instead of wasting time on back and forth.
“Was everything in the demo clear?”
Once you feel that you have provided the main message of your pitch, it’s important not to get bogged down in minor details. This question is hopefully closed-ended and will move you to the final phase of the conversation.
“At the end of the month we will start charging more for the full suite of solutions. Can you sign before then?”
This process question does two things – it imparts a sense of urgency for closing the deal while letting you know what to expect in terms of timing.
“So we’ve agreed to close next Wednesday. Is there anything I can do for you before then?”
This might be an open-ended question, but you should ensure that the prospect doesn’t feel as though you have cornered them into a deal. At the same time, you should move definitively toward a close.
Probing beyond surface-level: advanced techniques
You’ve given it your best shot, but the prospect is still on the fence. Time for the second phase: advanced questions. There are two basic ways to give and take them:
- Active listening. If you are confident in the approach that you’ve just taken, it might just take time for your message to sink in. Let the prospect feel at ease about discussing their reluctance. It’s your task to pinpoint exactly where the misunderstanding lies, which you can often handle by repeating parts of your pitch (but in different words).
- Peer support. There are lots of different personality types among prospects, from those who want a close personal connection with a vendor to data-driven people who love facts. At the same time, you’ve also got strengths and weaknesses. You might be better at answering some types of questions and not others. To give the prospect the best possible information, you should consider having one of your colleagues back you up for areas where their expertise is stronger.
Enhance your questions with Lusha’s data-driven insights
Some prospecting cold calls have a great chance of ending well even before they begin. Successful salespeople start a prospecting campaign by gathering and analyzing intent data that shows if an organization is actively looking for the product that they are selling. Then, they use B2B sales prospecting tools to identify actual people in a target company. They can further enrich the data to fill out the profiles of these prospects with critical info such as direct contact details, company size, revenue, industry, job role, and technographics. Finally, salespeople leverage this knowledge into data insights to understand how strong a prospect’s purchase intent might be and how to go about engaging with them.
Through this type of research, salespeople can define the best probing questions to ask. For example:
- Technographics can tell you about the technologies that the prospect already has, so you can define questions based on your fit (as a new product or a better solution than the current one).
- Revenue reports will, for example, show that the prospect’s company is expanding, so you can link your questions to the problems faced by a growing organization.
- Knowing the prospect’s role can hint at their connection to the buying process. If the prospecting data says that you are calling a VP, for instance, there’s a good chance that they will have significant decision-making power.
Lusha is a sales prospecting tool that provides all of this data and more. The award-winning platform supplies data enrichment features that can guide and improve questioning strategies, as well as gain better insights from data. Lusha even provides a free sales script generator that helps you optimize your outreach efforts based on the details of your offering. The personalized approach, based on Lusha’s technology, helps you to run productive cold calls and speed your way to more deals.
Key takeaways
- Probing questions during a prospecting effort allows you to find out more about a prospect, their goals, and your value to them while building a relationship.
- The five basic types of probing questions are open-ended, closed-ended, loaded, recall, and process; you might use all of these during the various stages of making a deal.
- It’s essential to prepare for every prospecting encounter with up-to-date, accurate, and multi-dimensional sales intelligence data.
