There is this awkwardness when it comes to sales and asking, like it is demeaning. Those of us who are parents will always notice the one child who feels shy when someone is offering sweets or Candy  and we feel we must always try to protect them and step in so they get their fair share from the other gregarious children, and slowly try to educate them out of their shell to speak up for themselves, so as to prosper later in life.

During my 30 years in direct sales, and I am still in direct sales, I am dismayed when people adamantly tell me they don’t sell anything, they are at best, lying, the entire success of our human race is based upon people exchanging services for money and vice versa and that all starts with a question:

“Are you selling those Chickens?” Says the hungry traveler.

“Yes, I am, are you selling those bear skins?” Replied the cold native

Negotiations can mean failure or success in business, we negotiate every single day, even just crossing the road is a negotiation, we make choices all the time asking ourselves which the best way is. People in the East negotiate much better than Westerners. Conversely many Eastern people feel it is rude to ask too many questions whereas people in the west thrive on questioning others. So why are many of us  scared to ask simple questions that could mean massive successes for us in business.

One line of questioning I have seen dwindle in the last decade and it is costing us all dearly is asking for referrals.

Online and digital have narrowed this down to a fine art. Just today I sent a friend a referral link to a Crypto Wallet I have been using and they signed up as they got a small bonus for doing so. But face to face we more often forget once all business is closed and signed, to ask the new customer for a referral or two.

For Insurance and Financial people this is a life line and a vital source of new business. It can be for you as well so ask yourself; what rewards system you can offer your current clientele right now for information from their network about people looking to buy your product or service.

Easier to ask 100 people to do 1% for you, than get one person to do 100% for you.

Asking has a deep intelligence to it, the more questions you can ask the more you will learn. Watch any episode of Colombo (1970’s TV detective series for you Millennials, worth watching on You Tube) and you get to see his method of asking:

“Oh, just one more thing…”

The last annoying question was his masterpiece, he could read so much body language from the last question, and it was more often here he got his man. Detectives today spend years homing their questioning techniques, if you for example, put your hand to your nose or mouth just once when answering, you have just about admitted guilt! Just say nothing and wait till your lawyer comes.

Effectiveness of Good Questions 

Irrespective of the type of questions that we ask or frames of reference that we enforce for our thinking, one thing is very clear. We need to be intentional about the tone and purpose of the questioning.  In some cases, it might even be helpful to explore different ways of asking the same questions to look at the topic from different perspectives and frames. 

We also need to be open to listen and comprehend the answers and the influence that the way we framed our question impacted the answer. I believe the ability to introduce awkward silences in the conversation after asking the questions and staying in the moment with the person answering the question can go a long way in getting them to open up and share things that they might not even be aware of themselves. 

In Conclusion:

We today live in a world where we are losing the ability to question everything happening around us from multiple perspective. In most cases, we have even stopped questioning and holding people responsible for their actions. This is a dangerous trend, one that will lead us to further alienate ourselves from others who are different and think differently. 

My favourite question is “Is there something you need to tell me?”

More over this question drills into any guilty person’s soul and one look upwards (Body language sign of creativity and thinking quickly for a lie) is my trigger for deeper questions.

The person that asks more questions wins more often than the answering person.

We at leads4biz have built a business around asking questions.

We simply offer free marketing of your business to all our site visitors and to over 300,000 people on our social media accounts in return for you to tell us what products and services you are currently sourcing for your business (B2B), and/or for yourself (B2C).

Yes, you pay us in information, because that information is useful to any of the 6,000 + other members that advertise with us. Oh, and they pay us $35 a month for the info, compare that to all the current paid marketing you do and your sales team salaries to find someone interested in what you sell right now!

Want us to send you buying info (Buying leads)? There someone had to ask!

You need to now ask us how!