4 Must-Ask Questions To Uncover Buyer Objectives Video Lecture | B2B Sales: Tips and Strategies

hey this is arguin in this short video I
want to go into four question categories
to uncover by our objectives I get a lot
of questions around questions and if you
watch some of my other videos you'll
notice that I find questions to be an
invaluable tool in generating new
business uncovering the full range of
needs that clients have in building
strong relationships and emotional
connections if you ask great questions
you'll stand out as a seller and in time
a trusted advisor so recently someone
asked me said I go what are some of the
types of questions that you like using I
understand which questions you like but
is there like a categorization or a
typology of questions that you recommend
or that you adopt and the answer is yes
I like to think of my questions as
placed somewhere on a four box grid and
there are two dimensions as with any
four box grid of course the first one is
you have open questions and you have
closed questions the second dimension is
you have micro questions and micro or
macro questions let's start with open
and closed questions open questions are
great for uncovering additional
information about a client's needs their
desires their wants the impact that they
seek and the new reality an example of
an open question could be could you walk
me through the challenge or the problem
that you're currently facing as you see
it you'll see that an open question is
designed to get something to reflect
into walk through or to explain or to
deepen the understanding that you have
of their problem challenge or whatever
it is that you're questioning them about
another example of an open question
could be what is it about the approach
that we've discussed so far that you
find valuable or where you have
questions open questions are great to
start the conversation and to go into
exploration mode these are the types of
questions that you want to use when
you're uncovering needs uncovering
afflictions and aspirations when you're
testing potential solutions the opposite
of open questions are closed questions
closed questions I define as questions
that can be answered what is simple yes
or no or a statement an example of a
closed question would be do you feel
that you have enough information and
there's
point to move forward simple question
yes No another example of a close
question would be argued the ultimate
decision-maker in this particular sales
process now a word of caution it's not
because it's a closed question and
people can give you an easy answer that
you'll want to stop right there
sometimes people say yes or no but you
may want to follow up with an open
question to get them to expand and
sometimes you want to follow a closed
question with another closed question
just to confirm your understanding for
example if you ask someone or you deal
to the decision-maker in this process
and they say yes then you might say does
that mean there's nobody else involved
from your firm yes ok now in addition to
open and closed questions and again open
questions or questions designed to
uncover information to to get a buyer to
open up and talk and brought about their
afflictions and aspirations and closed
questions are designed to validate
scenarios or to get yes/no answers but
in addition to open and closed questions
there are also what I like to call macro
and micro questions now these questions
are great and the reason I love them so
much is they allow you to take a
conversation literally to a whole new
level
macro questions are designed to talk
about and look at the big picture macro
questions are great in situations where
you're concerned that you're being
bogged down in details that ultimately
are immaterial without having to covered
the larger picture let me tell you what
I mean a lot of us sellers and buyers
alike have a tendency to go into
operational mode pretty much immediately
we like to talk about concrete solutions
to a problem and test invalidate
scenarios right off to that you can only
do that once you've done a thorough
needs discovery and once you've clearly
understood what is it that a client
seeks as the ultimate outcome or benefit
or objective for whatever it is that
you're offering so if someone says you
know I'd like I like to adopt this
approach and I feel comfortable with
that and I'd like to move forward with
that a great macro question would be
well let's think about where you want to
be after this project is over let's
imagine this was a resounding success
what is it that you would see
differently and how would you know it's
been successful that's an example of a
Mac requester you can see how this takes
everything up to a completely
from level which is much higher another
example of a maverick question would be
I'm just curious
can you walk me through can you help me
understand how this ties into your
overall corporate objectives or strategy
it's another example of a great macro
question then the opposite also
sometimes happens a lot of people are
some people have a tendency to stay at
that high level but they're not able to
take you down to a detailed practical
operational level in those cases you
want to use what I call micro questions
micro questions are designed to go to a
lower level detail level sorry a lower
level detail helpful to a lower level of
detail micro questions or questions that
get you to validate potential options in
terms of implementation for example a
great micro question would be I
understand how this initiative would
support your corporate strategy but
let's talk about implementation for a
second who do you see is the first team
or division that should be taking this
forward you see how this takes a
conversation to a completely different
level now if you play around with those
four dimensions you can get very
creative you have open questions and
close questions
macro questions and micro questions what
I would highly encourage that you do is
before your next conversation before
your next sales meeting take a moment
draw a grid open closed macro micro and
play some of your favorite questions in
there try to develop some great
questions that become your go-to
questions in future sales meetings I do
this all the time I have my favorite
five six seven ten questions that I love
to ask in every single meeting and it's
such a great help to help me uncover the
full range of afflictions and
aspirations that a client has the impact
they seek the the new reality that they
ultimately hope to achieve but also do
things like addressing objections and
testing potential scenarios so with that
I'll leave you at that thank you very
much for watching this video hope you
found this useful again open questions
closed questions macro micro questions
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