Most salespeople just start their sales talk without any regard for what their prospects needs and wants are. How can you possible know what your prospect or client needs if you do all the talking? The answer is simply, you can not.

As a salesperson, it is your job to get people to buy what you are selling. Period. To do that, you need to discover what your prospects problem is, this way you have the opportunity to help him solve it. Just spewing your sales talk does not allow you to get any information from a client or prospect.

Let us say for argument sake, you are selling websites to company owners to increase their online presence. When you meet with your prospect, you start discussing the benefits of having an online presence and how much the internet has grown as a source of business.

You explain how many of your other clients have had a tremendous increase in business as soon as they had a web presence. Then you show him all the benefits of having an online presence. But...

This prospect already has a website. He has had a site for years. His problem is the website he has is not generating any traffic and therefore he has not gotten any sales from it. So trying to sell this person a website to increase his business will only result in a lost opportunity.

Had you asked questions first like "what are your online goals, Do you already have a website or What are your thoughts about websites?" you would have discovered that this prospect has a website but is extremely dissatisfied with it.

Once you know what your prospects problem is, you know how to address it. When you ask questions early in your sales call, you will discover the needs and wants of your prospect so you can help him get what he wants. You will close more sales and make more money by asking questions.

Zig Ziglar is famous for his quote "You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." The trick to doing this is to ask people questions so you know what it is they actually want.

Asking questions is a powerful sales technique and you should use it whenever you can. Don't make the mistake so many other salespeople make.