Did you know your client is more likely to listen to you and actually engage in your conversation if you ask them questions? Questions provoke thought, allow your customer to better understand your message, and allow you to guide them down the path to making a good decision. Good questions engage the customer because they force them to actually use their brains, and come to a conclusion on their own, instead of you just telling them what they need to do. Aren’t people typically more open to
something when it is their idea compared being told what to do?

One of my favorite exercises when I’m training technicians all over the country is to ask them to sell me a surge protector or a UV light. Almost every single time they begin to regurgitate facts, and features they’ve memorized, rambling on and on without engaging me at all. While this information may be important, when you do this to your customers, they rarely understand what you’re talking about, and their minds go on a
day trip. We have all seen “the look.” When you’re in the middle of talking to a customer about a product, things seem to be going well, and then all of a sudden their eyes look glazed over, and it seems like somebody turned the lights off in their brain. At this point you might as well just stop talking because they aren’t listening! What’s the best way to get their attention back? Ask a question! If you are asking good questions and engaging the customer, instead of just making statements and talking at them, you
will almost always avoid this situation all together, but if it happens, recognize it, and quickly get them engaged again. You don’t need to talk to a customer for 5, 10, or 15 minutes about each product in order to sell them. Most of the time you can do it by just asking a few good questions.

How to Quickly Turn Statements Into Questions

Were you aware that virtually any statement can be easily turned into a question? If you do have important information or facts that are necessary to share with your customer, turn them into questions. You can take a statement and add these 4 phrases to the beginning of the sentence to turn it into a question.

“Did you know that…”
“Were you aware that…”
“Would you believe that…”
“………………”

Here’s an example:

Statement- Biological growth such as mold can grow in your heating and cooling system.

  1. Did you know that biological growth such as mold can grow in your heating and cooling system?
  2. Were you aware that biological growth such as mold can grow in your heating and cooling system?
  3. Would you believe that biological growth such as mold can grow in your heating and cooling system?

The next time you are trying to establish a need or pitch a product to your customer instead of making a bunch of statements, try asking questions using these 4 phrases, and lead the customer down the path to understanding the benefits of buying. I promise your customer will be more receptive, more engaged, and more willing to buy from you once you master this technique.