Why use an open ended question?
Posted in Marketing, sales, Small Business Advice, Uncategorized on August 25th, 2009 by Tracie Gilbert – 1 CommentNow that you have brushed up on your Listening Skills, let’s explore how to get your customers talking. Usually the easiest way to do this is to ask an open ended question.
Open ended questions simply refer to questions that can’t be answered with a single word such as yes or no. Open ended questions inspire long answers, rather than just one or two words. In a sales setting, an open-ended question, rather than close-ended questions, can be especially beneficial.
Let’s examine a common sales mistake, you are calling a customer and trying to find out what feature(s) of your product will work best for them. Quite a few out there unfortunately have the bad habit of going through each feature individually and then asking the customer, “Does that sound good to you?” In this instance, they are doing most of the talking (instead of listening to what the customer needs), have wasted time that the customer may not have (resulting in irritation or abruptness) AND have now given the customer the option of saying “NO” (an unforgivable offense).
So what does a smart sales person that knows how to listen and is a problem solver, do instead?
A good start would be to ask the customer an open ended question. “What are you looking for in this product?” This allows you to find out what matters most to them and tailor your presentation to highlight only the features that matter to them. If your product matches or exceeds their every desire or fixes a specific problem they mentioned, then the customer is going to have a much harder time finding a reason to say no and instead has been given every reason to say “Yes!”
Everyone in this current economy is busier than ever and by eliminating the items in your pitch that do not matter at all to the customer and showing that you care about their problems and would like to help them solve them, you will be more successful in your sales attempts and thus, more successful in your business.
Now, the question is, what are you going to go do with this knowledge?

Cosmetic Promotions, a National marketing and promotion company, completed a 6 month customer response survey on in-store demonstrations. The survey was conducted during several events in various retailers between 4th Quarter 2008 and 1st quarter 2009.
The events are usually conducted by a professional makeup artist and features brands such as Cover Girl, Wet n Wild and Neutrogena in mass drug, food or merchandiser stores. Markwins Company hired Cosmetic Promotions to do over 500 in-store events during this period on their Wet n Wild and Black Radiance brands and to introduce their new Beauty Benefits Brand. At a recent Beauty Benefits event, sales average 3 pieces per hour with a closure rate of 150%. The closure rate is figured by dividing the number of sales by the number of makeovers performed. 82% if the customers had never tried or heard of the brand prior to the event and the company is happy with the results.
Those of us with oily skin were feeling left out..It seems that most of the concealers of the world were designed for dry skin.