Qualifying Questions: Worth It?

Interrogating customers is bad business. Qualifying questions are boring the customer, and even worse, can be threatening.

Your customer might feel like they're being interrogated if ask these right at the beginning of your meeting:

👉 Who are the decision-makers?
👉 What is your budget?
👉 What is your timeline?

These questions might be important to YOU and your boss, but to the customer, this is just an annoying interrogation.

Instead, follow these steps:

1. Disarm the customer by asking questions like, "Is your equipment pretty new?" This is much less threatening but still gets the ball rolling.
2. Ask wedge questions. These are questions that identifies their pain points, and allows you to begin a meaningful discussion.
3. Present your solution.
4. THEN ask any additional follow up questions that you need to know, such as budget, timeline, etc. Now that they're bought into your solution they will be more willing to share this information.

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