Asking Open-ended Questions

When qualifying leads as potential customers, you have to ask questions that bring value.

Meaning the questions you ask should help both you and the one you’re questioning learn something new.

These types of questions are known as high-value questions and are usually open-ended instead of closed-ended.

So in this blog post, we will learn more about open-ended questions.

Let’s dive right in.

Open-ended Questions

Open-ended questions cant be answered with one-word answers so instead prompt a conversation.

An example would include:

Where do you want to be in five years?

For each person, the answer to this question would:

Be different for each person
Be answered from a unique perspective
Prompt a longer conversation

Remember open-ended questions provide more details from the person you’re questioning but closed-ended questions don’t.

Open-Ended and Closed-Ended Questions

Open-ended questions start longer conversations by starting questions with:

Why
How
What if?

Closed-ended questions have one-word answers, like:

Both open-ended and closed-ended questions are used in sales conversations.

Use close-ended questions if you want one-word or quantitative answers, like:

The prospect’s number of employees
A company’s annual revenue

And use open-ended questions to learn qualitative information on initial discovery calls with prospects or new customers.

Open-ended questions help build trust and rapport by:

Getting to know the prospect and their needs
Building a positive relationship

Asking Open-Ended Questions

Let’s say you’ve just completed a meeting.

Asking prospects if they found something helpful, is a closed-ended question that can only be answered with a yes or no.

But to find out the ways they experienced value, ask about the value they’ve received going through this process?

Doing so will help your prospect tell you about their perception of the process, which helps you clearly see your value.

Plus, asking prospects about value helps reinforce it in their minds, making you more preferred and being able to ask for referrals.

Turn questions into open-ended ones

Pay attention to the questions you ask:

Prospects
Clients
Everyone you encounter

If you’re asking closed-ended questions when open-ended questions would give you more information, turn closed-ended questions into open-ended questions.

Follow up close-ended questions with open-ended ones

If you ask a closed-ended question, open it up at the end.

For example, if you ask:

Did you find value in this process?

Follow it up with:

Tell me in what ways

Open-ended questions start conversations, not scripts

Open-ended questions are designed to start conversations.

So it’s normal if the answers to an open-ended question get sidetracked from the subject.

This means your open-ended questions work, just make sure you have a plan if the conversation does go off course.

Also remember to actively listen to answers prospects give you, this will help:

Build rapport
Become trusted

Open-ended Question Examples

What are your business’s top priorities at the moment?
What are the best decisions you’ve made towards ___?
How do you feel about your current situation towards ___?
Five years from today, what needs to happen for you to feel good about your business situation towards ___?
What future opportunities do you see?
What challenges will stop those opportunities happening?
How will you measure your success from those outcomes?
What’s the risk of you progressing in this situation?
Who needs to be part of making the final purchasing decision?
What’s the motivation for taking this project?

The following are examples of open-ended, high-value questions to ask prospects:

What are your business’s top priorities at the moment?

An alternative to the question, “What’s your main business goal?”

Asking prospects to share business priorities allows them to give information on the current state of their business.

And this information will give you valuable insights into positioning your product or service to better resonate with them.

What are the best decisions you’ve made towards ___?

An alternative to asking, “What did you focus on last year?”

This tells you prospect’s recent wins and understanding this helps you learn how to present your product as their next good decision.

How do you feel about your current situation towards ___?

Asking prospects to describe their current situation allows them to:

Share their story and perspective
Creates a safe space to build trust

Five years from today, what needs to happen for you to feel good about your business situation towards ___?

An alternative to questions that put prospects on the spot like “What’s your five-year plan?”

So asking them how you can help them reach their best scenario is a low-pressure way that leads to a thoughtful conversation about their future plans.

What future opportunities do you see?

Another low-pressure way of inquiring prospects about their future plans by asking them the opportunities they want to capitalise on.

Then you can use this valuable information to show your product as the key to realising their opportunities.

What challenges will stop those opportunities happening?

Don’t ask about the roadblocks but keep the conversation about their opportunities.

This question makes prospects think about working together to remove obstacles to their goals.

How will you measure your success from those outcomes?

This is a better way of asking prospects about their KPIs.

Instead of asking, “What are your KPIs?” which they could answer with “sales” which doesn’t give you any insights.

Ask how they plan to measure success so prospects can go in-depth explaining how they will know when they’ve reached their goals.

What’s the risk of you not progressing in this situation?

Instead of asking, “What if you don’t hit your goals?”

Ask what their risks are of not making progress.

This question is more friendly and allows you to work together and strategise potential risk management practices.

Who needs to be part of making the final purchasing decision?

Finding the decision maker to make a sale so during the sales process, work with the right contact.

Don’t waste your time putting in the groundwork for a deal with a prospect that doesn’t have purchasing authority and can’t sign you on.

So ask this question to confirm who needs to be part of the final purchasing decision.

What’s the motivation for taking this project?

Understand your prospect’s decision making process with this question.

This question helps you:

Learn what motivates prospects
They results they want from your product
Set expectations
Speak on features that matter to buyer

Plus by asking this question, prospects will share their values, which will help build trust.