No Fishing!

What is your favorite flavor of Ice Cream? Is it Rocky Road? Vanilla? Maybe it’s Black Cherry? No, this isn’t “get to know your classmate” day in Kindergarten, this is an example of a mistake made by most sales people at some time as they probe their prospects. We have lovingly given this technique a name: Fishing.

Maybe this example will ring a bell; “Who is your current telecom service provider; PAETEC? XO? AT&T?” I bet you’ve heard that before, and probably done it. It is when you ask a question and then proceed to provide multiple choice answers for your prospect to choose from. Sometimes we do it out of habit. Some do it to fill the silence. Some even do it to prove their acumen to their prospect and themselves.

Whatever the reason, this seemingly innocuous misstep can mean the difference between winning and losing a deal. By giving your prospect options, they now have an easy “out” . They are likely to choose one of the options you gave them instead of taking a moment to give you a full and complete answer. In this example, your prospect may answer “XO”, as they could be the voice services provider. Without the multiple choice; you would be likely to get a more complete answer like: “ Well, we use ABC carrier for voice, but…” Maybe they go on to explain that XYZ carrier provides their data. Or maybe they start to explain their pain points with their provider.

Regardless, the odds are that by not giving them a multiple choice question, you will get a more complete answer that is full of information that could be used further in the sales process to help you win the business. Information that may have taken much longer to get out of your prospect (and let’s face it, we don’t always have all the time in the world with our prospects) or more importantly, we may have never gleaned this information at all.

The moral of the story; when probing our prospects we want to ask concise, open ended questions. And always remember: NO FISHING!