Consulting Journal: Techniques - Getting beyond Yes

Techniques: Getting beyond Yes

by David Blakey

Consultants can learn how to get the answers they want by asking the questions that salesmen ask.

[Monday 3 November 2003]

Management training includes asking questions that are ‘open’ rather than ‘closed’. During an assignment, management consultants make sure that they always ask open questions. Actually, we sometimes do not ask questions: we invite comment. Instead of asking ‘What did you think about it?’, we may say ‘Tell me what you thought about it.’

Sales training includes avoiding questions that allow the answer ‘No’. As closed questions can usually be answered with ‘No’, salespeople avoid closed questions. Consultants can use this technique in dealing with their clients.

A salesman will avoid a question like ‘Would you like to schedule an appointment?’ The client - or prospect - might say ‘No’ immediately. The salesman will then have to work harder in order to get an appointment.

A management consultant might try to find a way of rephrasing the question so it is open. This is difficult with a question like ‘Shall we make an appointment?’.

The sequence of question and answer might be:

‘Shall we make an appointment?’
‘Yes.’
‘When is a convenient time for you to meet for an hour?’

To avoid getting the answer ‘No’, a salesman will simply skip the first question. While a management consultant might struggle to find a good way to ask the first question, the salesman might ask ‘When can we meet for an hour?’ The management consultant should learn to do this, too.

Now, let us move on to the way that a really confident salesman will approach the same set of questions. This salesman will avoid getting the answer ‘No’ to the first question, by not asking it. But they will realize that the prospect can still avoid making an appointment by replying ‘I'd like to think about it’ or ‘Well, I'm not sure that I want to meet’. The confident salesman will change the question so that it becomes more personal. The technique is not to make it more personal to the prospect, as a management consultant might tend to do, but to make it more personal to the salesman.

So, the salesman might say ‘I'd really like to get together with you to discuss this further. When can you give me an hour?’ The salesman is using two weapons.

First, if the prospect refuses, they will be refusing the salesman's desire to meet. The salesman has said that he would really like to meet, and the prospect may find it difficult to refuse this.

Second, if the prospect refuses, they will be refusing the salesman's request to meet. The salesman has asked the prospect to give him an hour, and the prospect may find it difficult to turn down this direct appeal.

The technique here is preface the question with a statement that declares the salesman's desires and needs. The question that follows will then be a personal request.

It is easy for management consultants to adopt this technique.

I would really like to work on improving your supply chain. When can you spare me an hour to talk?

I'd like to share my experience in the energy sector with you. When can we get together to discuss how I could help?

The prospect can still refuse, of course, but it becomes harder for them because they will disappoint another person by doing so.

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