If you Google ‘questioning technique’, over 32 million results will invade your screen. If you funnel down and search for ‘questioning methodology appropriate for sales professionals’, you will discover a further 18 million plus articles. Apparently, a lot is written about this very popular area of persuasion. The crucial questions most people ask that I would like you to mull over as you read further are:

• What is important to you about being able to ask persuasive questions?
• What is the single, most significant advantage that being able to ask compelling, persuasive questions will make to you, personally?

While pondering over those questions, it is important to recognise that the asking of questions is more than a process of merely eliciting relevant information to drive you forwards, towards your sale. Never forget, your prospect is more likely to have an interest in, or purchase your product or service as a consequence of how they think about it, and not how you think about it. Precisely formed questions expertly articulated will enable you to plant proactively purchasing suggestions and thoughts into your prospect’s mind that they believe are theirs and that guide them to make mutually beneficial buying decisions.

Properly constructed questions will:

• positively affect how your prospect thinks about your product or service;
• form the basis for developing persuasive dialogue;
• heighten your level of influence.

Always remember that questions are your ultimate persuasive tool. The more proficient you are at asking them, the easier it will become for you to sell. Consider this: the mind cannot not answer a question; had you ever thought about that before? When you pose a question, the listener or reader automatically searches for the answer; it is entirely automatic. This is as powerful as it is intriguing because, simply by asking questions, you are exercising control over someone else’s mind and their thinking and, because of this, asking questions is more powerful than responding to them. To quote Voltaire: ‘Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.’

Whoever asks the questions is the leader. Do not be hijacked. In this part, we will reveal a selection of different question types that you will use to plant ideas and suggestions into the minds of others and to lead them to think what you want them to think. Also, to ensure you are fully prepared for future sales meetings, because the process of persuasion originates inside you, we will introduce an assortment of questions devised specifically to intensify your level of focus towards the outcome you seek and create within you a ‘mindset’ for persuasion.

We will concentrate on the following types of questions:

• Pre-suppositional
• Tag
• Powerful
• Future pacing
• Criteria