WORST vs BEST Sales Questions to Ask

How do you make even more sales? You ask even better questions. So in this video, I want to share with you a breakdown of the top three absolute worst type of questions that you can ask in roofing sales compared to the absolute best questions that you can ask in roofing sales. And in doing so, you, my friend, are going to learn how to close even more deals, even easier, and make your customers wildly happy, which is what we do here. Welcome. Welcome back. Adam Bensman. And everything I do is designed to help you and your team. So smash your income goal and give every customer an amazing experience. And amazing experiences are created by the way of relationships, and relationships are found in two way conversations. And one of the biggest pitfalls of roofing sales training at large is that there's so much emphasis on communicating one way, how we pitch, how we present, how we showcase what we can do, how we demonstrate our value. But what we often overlook is asking questions. This doesn't tie into closing questions. I want to talk about building value through understanding how we can best serve our customers. And the best way to do that is through questions, but often it's overlooked. So I want to ask you a question. Who is in control, the person asking the question or the person answering the question? My guess is you got it right. The person asking the question is the one in control. I want to ask you another question. Who feels like they're more in control, the person asking the question or the person answering the question? And my guess is you got that one right as well. The person answering the question is the one who feels like they're more in control, which is why it's so beautiful to ask great questions in the sale, because you get to stay in control of the dialogue, whereas your customer feels like they're in control, which leads to a deeper relationship, getting more yeses and homeowners giving you the ultimate gift in the entire world, which is saying thank you as they hand you a deposit check or a final payment. Have you had that happen to you where a customer is giving you that $20,000 final balance and saying, thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to explain all of this to me. Thank you for helping us through the process. Thank you for making this so easy. Thank you so much. Who else hands over such large sums of money and says thank you? That is the ultimate compliment, that you did an incredible job. Thank you. And the way I look at money, it's not, let's get more commissions. You know, it's not the bro y like, yeah, let's go get the commissions and buy the cool car. I look at money as collecting thank you notes. I want all my customers to say, thank you so much for helping me through this process. Thank you so much for changing my life. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me get to where I am today. That is the ultimate gift. So I want you to think about questions as an even better way to serve your customers. So you, my friend, can collect even more thank you notes and then spend those thank you notes however you want, having fun, right? And of course, investing and providing opportunities for your friends and family. But I did want to spend a moment just breaking down that very big disconnect between the traditional bro y sales of material acquisition and flaunting versus really looking at how do we provide an incredible service to our customers where they literally thank us while they're giving us money. And one of the easiest ways to do that is by learning to ask good questions. Because, because you're in control, they feel like they're in control and you're able to navigate the sales process to give them exactly what they need. But in order to get there, we need to ask good questions and not the worst type. So let's get to it. There's three types of questions that we're going to break down today. First, showcasing the worst type of questions and then I'm going to help you fix it and then teach you how to ask the best type of questions. Ready to get started? Let's rock and roll. First. First, the worst type of questions are complex questions. Now a complex question is something like this, hey, when it comes to selecting a roofer, what's most important to you? You know, how long they've been in business, their reviews, their accreditation and value? How do you and your wife decide what value means to you? So that's a complex question where I'm asking about their decision making process, what are they looking for in a contractor? And then I'm feeding them answers about like, oh, maybe you can answer in this way about the reviews, how long they've been or is value important? And a complex question is trying to tackle too much at once. And the interesting thing is many of us think that complex questions are going to get complex answers like, oh, if I just like go at it all these ways, I'm going to get all this information out. But it really doesn't work that way. In fact, sometimes the simplest of questions leads to the most complex answers. And, and I would go so far as to say that happens most of the time. I'LL give you an example. If I said to a homeowner, what are you looking for in a contractor? They're likely going to explain far more to me than if I say, hey, when it comes to selecting a roofer, what's important to you? You know, the value, how long they've been in business, their reviews. They're usually just going to pick one of those words that you fed them and say reviews. It's going to be their longevity review. Or they're going to grab one or two things and that's it and the conversation's over because we fed it to them. Or if I bolted on, you know, what's most important is it how long they've been in business, their ratings online, and value helps that. Then they're going to like, skip the first question and only answer the second part like, well, value is really important, does a lot of money, and then the conversation's done. So we need to remember that complex questions lead to very simple answers and often short answers that don't help us advance the sale. But on the other end of the spectrum, simple questions can lead to very complex answers. And I want to give you an example outside the roofing space. And this may in fact even contradict my third point. So pay attention to see how it does. But it's a great example. Have you ever asked a stranger, hey, did you grow up here? Many people who didn't grow up in that area will tell you their whole life story. No, you know what? I didn't grow up here. I was actually born in Nashville, Tennessee, but my dad was in the military. So I grew up as a military kid. I lived on four bases. In fact, of those four, I was in three separate countries. I speak two different languages and we bounced out all over the place. And you get the whole thing from one simple question, which was, are you from here? Okay. This is a perfect example of how a very simple question can oftentimes lead to a very complex answer. Now, this is conversation that is different than our sales conversation. And again, that question contradicts number three. So I want you to see if you can guess what that contradiction is as we progress through the video. All right? Complex is the worst. Simple is the best. Make sense? Let's continue. Number two, the worst type of questions is actually this. Not asking follow up questions, not furthering the dialogue. I see this happen all the time when I do role play. And in fact, I've been traveling the country doing role play and speaking at events in groups of people. And we'll Bring up an audience member to do some role play and we'll ask a question of something like, and what's most important to you when it comes to selecting a contractor? And the homeowner may respond with something like, you know, we really want someone who's been in business for a while who's going to stand behind their work and, you know, provide a good value. And then boom, the next question's plugged in and the homeowner feels like they're sitting there to a question. Machine gun, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chomp, chomp. Just blasting questions away without a proper follow up. So instead what we need to do is pump the brakes and be patient and take the time and ask the necessary follow up questions. Like when you talked about providing a good value, can you share with me what does a good value mean to you? And then they explain, hey, well, a good value is where we feel like we got a fair price. And then I can ask, and how will you and your wife determine what seems fair to you? You know, that's a really good question. And they may not even be able to answer what? Well, fair would be knowing everything that's going to get done on the roof where we know that it might not be the highest estimate, it might not be the lowest, but it's like the right amount that gets the job done where you can stand behind it. And then now I've uncovered some things or another question. How will you and your wife choose which roofing company is best for you? Well, you know, we're going to get a few estimates. Great. And what is your decision criteria look like? You know, well, we're going to be comparing them here and here and what will you be looking for in each estimate? And then they're going to answer, and how will you decide which one gets your final vote? They answer in, what is the single most important thing to you when it comes to selecting a contractor? These are the follow up questions. So what many salespeople do is they may get decent in asking a question, but then the question hits a dead end and, and then the conversation is over. So those are the worst questions, is the ones that you start but you never finish. So instead the best questions are the follow up questions to extract even more information, to go deeper and to provide an environment for that homeowner to openly and share even more. And one really way to do that, really simple way to do that is just to say, what else? How will you and your wife decide what seems like a fair value to you? Explain, explain Explain and what else? Explain, explain, explain and what else? And they'll explain a little more. And you say anything else? No, that's it. Great, now we've done it. So that is what we need to do is to dig deeper by using follow up questions. So again, the worst questions are the ones that start and then dead end. The best questions are the ones that go deeper and ask follow ups with how, what, when, why. All right, and we need to remember to also use things like what else? Tell me a little bit more to extract more information. All right, now this brings me to the worst question type, which is number three. And I told you I contradicted this in the very beginning. Can you guess what it is? Now the worst questions in sales, in my opinion are yes or no questions. These are closed ended questions which I might use. For example, like this, if I'm selling water purification, knock on the door, hey, do you guys enjoy drinking clean purified water? Yes. Duh. Right. I don't want to use yes or no questions because they don't further the discovery, they don't further the discussion. And as a salesperson, the more information that I have, the easier it is for me to pick and choose from all the benefits that we can offer, how we help homeowners through the process. I can say, all right, now I can plug this in example, there's those four stages of the claims process. I talk about no claim, partial payment, denial, check in hand in retail. There's the four stages, excuse me, four reasons people replace their roof age, it's at the end of its life, an active leak or a problem, a cosmetic upgrade or a life event like putting the house on the market. So the more I know about which stage they're in, in the details of that stage, the easier it is for me to sell specific to that homeowner. And that's often overlooked. So yes or no questions, they have their place, like I said, are you from here? And it can lead to a further answer rather than yes or no or maybe a tie down question or commitment questions, or do you understand? Does all this make sense? Those are times where yes or no questions can be applied and they can be applied effectively. However, when we need information or we want our homeowners to feel like they're in control, when we need to learn more about them, we, we do not want to ask yes or no questions. We want to ask questions that lead to a longer response. And those are open ended questions that typically begin with who, what, when, where, why and how. Those are the six Questions to ask when, where, why, what and how. And again, reverting back to tip number one, keep them simple. But I do want to caution you really gently about one of those six words. What is it? It's the word why. Because if I said to you, let's say you're wearing a hat right now, for example, if I said why are you wearing that hat? All of a sudden you're put on the defensive and you're like why? Because I. Because I like it. And oftentimes the word why can be really intrusive and it can almost be accusatory and put people on the defensive. So my best advice, I throw that word why out the window and I use it really sparingly. And I'm always really conscious that if I do ask a why question, I don't want to make people feel like they're being insulted. For example, why did you choose that insurance company that basically says you're a dummy? Why did you choose them right, we don't want people to feel that way. So there you have it. The three worst types of questions in summary, number one, complex questions instead, keep them short, keep them simple and hit them one topic at a time. Worst question number two is the question that starts in dead ends because you didn't go deeper, you didn't get the real answer. The fix is the best type of questions which are follow up questions again, when, where, why, what and how and use why sparingly or even who and then finally remember to use the statement like what else, anything else, anything more and it'll help draw more information out. And often it's way deeper towards the truth than the first answer they gave you. And the third worst type of question are yes or no questions, often called close ended questions. Instead we want to ask open ended questions. Who, what, when, where, why and how. And remember, use why sparingly. Now, I hope that this video helps you ask even deeper questions to develop even deeper relationships, win more business and collect more thank you notes. Hey, thanks for joining me on this video today. Just because our time here is about to wrap up doesn't mean your in my time has to. So if you like this video and you want more, jump into my free training center right here and and if you want to get really good at asking questions, you might want to take a look at my sales training and sales system and there's a link below or you can text Demo D E M O to 303-222-7133 and I got a playlist for you I think you're really going to love. So if you want to hang with me here, jump into this one and I'll see you in the next video.