You will be able to rewrite closed questions as open ones and follow up on an answer to go one layer deeper.
Listen back to almost any new seller's first meeting and you hear a pattern. "Are you happy with your current provider?" "Yes, it's okay." "Do you have any concerns about cost?" "Not really." "Is this something you'd consider?" "Maybe." Ten minutes in, the seller has asked a dozen questions and knows almost nothing. The buyer has been answering politely, one word at a time, and is starting to wonder when this will end.
The seller asked plenty of questions, and nearly every one of them could be answered in a word. This lesson is about changing the shape of your questions so the buyer does most of the talking, which is what lesson 3.1, The three levels of listening, needs in order to work.
A closed question can be answered with yes, no or a single fact. They usually start with do, is, are, have, can or will. "Do you have insurance?" "Is the budget fixed?" "Are you the decision maker?"
An open question asks the buyer to describe, explain or tell a story. They usually start with what, how, or the phrase tell me about. "What cover do you have at the moment?" "How did you arrive at that budget?" "Tell me about how decisions like this get made in your team."
Closed questions have a place. They confirm facts quickly, and you need some near the end of a conversation to agree a next step. But a conversation built from them gives the buyer nothing to say, and you end up filling the silence with your own assumptions.
Converting is usually simple. "Are you happy with your current provider?" becomes "What's working with your current provider, and what isn't?" "Do you have any concerns about cost?" becomes "How are you thinking about cost for this?" The topic stays the same. The buyer simply has room to answer properly.
Why is technically open, but it often lands as an accusation. "Why did you choose that plan?" can sound like "what were you thinking?" especially to someone who already suspects they made a mistake. The buyer gets defensive and justifies instead of explaining.
How and what reach the same information with less sting. "What led you to that plan at the time?" or "How did you end up choosing it?" invites a story instead of a defence. A useful test is to imagine your question asked in a slightly irritated tone. If it sounds like a telling-off, rephrase it.
New sellers tend to prepare a list and move through it in order. The trouble is that each question starts a new topic, so the conversation stays on the surface.
The question that gets you deeper is usually a follow-up on what the buyer just said. Pick up one word or phrase and ask about it:
Buyer: "We tried a CRM last year but it didn't really stick." Seller: "What made it hard to stick with?" Buyer: "Honestly, the sales team just didn't update it." Seller: "What happened then?" Buyer: "My boss stopped trusting the numbers, so we went back to spreadsheets, and now I spend Friday afternoons chasing everyone for updates."
Three short questions, all follow-ups, and the seller now knows the real problem is Friday afternoons and a boss who does not trust the figures. None of that was on the prepared list. Good follow-ups are short: what makes that difficult, what happened then, how did that affect you, what else.
Nervous sellers stack questions. "So what's your budget, and when are you looking to start, and who else is involved?" The buyer answers the easiest one, usually the last, and the others disappear.
Ask one question, then stop. Let the silence sit until the buyer fills it, even if it takes several seconds. If they genuinely did not understand, they will say so. Usually they are thinking, and the answer that comes after a pause is better than the one that would have come at once.
This is harder than it sounds. The urge to rephrase, to offer an example answer, or to soften the question with "or whatever" is strong. Resist it. Your question was fine. Give it time to work.
Rewriting questions on paper is easy. Asking them in the moment, under pressure, is not, because closed questions are a habit and habits come out when you are nervous. The way to change them is to prepare your open versions in advance until they are the ones that come out first.
Before the activity, think back over your last two or three conversations with buyers or clients and write down the questions you actually asked, as close to word for word as you can remember, and keep that list beside you as you begin.
Turn ten closed questions you tend to ask into open ones, and add one follow-up question to each.
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