We were talking about the oft-quoted statistic that the number one indicator of whether a doctor will get sued for malpractice is not competence, but how much time they spend with a patient. The doctor I was talking with told me that while that was true, another key skill that drives better patient-doctor relationships is how they ask questions.
He asked me to guess what the average time is before a doctor goes from a general question (which is important to make the patient feel understood) to a directed question. Take a moment and make a guess yourself.
Eight seconds – that’s it.
Actually, I’m not surprised – most salespeople aren’t much different. It’s one thing to ask a question; quite another to let the customer/prospect answer, and I mean really answer, the question. I work a lot with companies and salespeople to develop the types of Resonating Questions™ that I discussed in my previous post. While asking these types of questions are critically important to sales success in today's world, the way you ask the questions is equally important.
I call the most common style used by salespeople "the interview." I refer to it as such because the person selling goes in with a list of questions (either written or in their head) and goes about asking them. The problem with interviewing is that the focus is on the question and the answer. However, little to no attention is paid to the implication of the answer; and as a result the conversation never goes deep and as such the selling organization is commoditized.
I call the most effective style "The Best Friend Conversation." When I'm training salespeople I ask them how would they ask questions, and how would they behave if they were talking with their best friend. Here are the components of a Best Friend Conversation (as least as it applies to selling):