The 250 Sales Questions To Close The Deal

Stephan Schiffman, the expert author of many sales titles, supplies a list of focused questions for you to ask during the sales process. He teaches that selling is just that - a process - and that a prospect is someone who is willing to undergo this process with you. Each question assumes that prospects need to "make sense" of the transaction before they will commit to a purchase, including Schiffman's prime closing query: "It makes sense to me - what do you think?" Therefore, every question is a step on the road to helping the prospect embrace the logic of the deal. Schiffman organizes his questions into six sections beginning with initiating contact and proceeding through the first meeting, scheduling the next step, crafting the presentation, dealing with setbacks and, finally, negotiating the close. The book disperses valuable gems of wisdom between the questions and teaches applicable salesmanship rather than theory. All this makes sense to us. What do you think?

I have read most of Stephen Schiffman's books and I adhere to most of his ideas with above-average success. Unfortunately, this book falls short of some of his better books, most notably "Closing Techniques" and "Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work)."

I don't know how he arrived at the number 250, but it is a stretch to say there are 250 different questions. More likely, there are variations of about 100, if that many. For example, if a prospect tells you to call back after the busy season, like in February for instance, you are to ask "Why February?" That's one of the 250 questions. "You don't mind if I take notes, do you?" is a question. So are "Who did you work with last time?" and "Why them?"

Schiffman gets beaten-up at times for being repetitive, and while I don't always agree with that assessment, he certainly is in this book. Also, one of his first points is about asking for the appointment when cold-calling. Now this was covered - quite successfully may I add - in his book "Cold Calling Techniques." In this book however, he recommends that you ask (and this is one of the 250) "What I'd like to do is get together with you this coming Tuesday at 10:00 - does that make sense?" I can't imagine asking someone for an appointment like that! It doesn't seem natural. But he insists that it works, so if you try it, let me know.

I'll conclude by saying that there is usually some snippet of useful information in most any book, and there are some thought-provoking ideas in this one. But don't bother buying it, go to a Books-A-Million or Borders and grab a copy and skim through it while drinking a cup of coffee. In about 20 minutes or so you'll have gotten the gist of what he's saying.

Does that make sense?