Asking questions to engage listeners during a demo or presentation is a good thing. Asking the same two questions of your listeners over and over again, however, is not. You sound robotic and they tune you out, rather than tune you in. Yet, that is what so many demo presenters do. Is it because they are afraid of the answers they might get if they asked different questions, or, is it that they were never exposed to better, business-building questions? These are the two killers.
- Do you agree?
- Does that make sense?
Certainly, those two closed questions have their place in a presentation, but not to the exclusion of stronger engagement open-ended questions like
- Who would benefit most from this in your group? Why?
- To what extent does this make sense for your group?
- How does this compare to what you are doing now?
- Did you realize you could do this? [No] What would that mean to you to be able to do this
- Clients really like this feature because they save… What do you think of this capability?
Stumbling vs. Leading
Strings of closed ended questions make the seller sound like a batch of features in search of a need. Does this make sense? No? How about this? Does this make sense? No? How about this? Does this make sense?
Open ended questions invite thought, imagination, reflection, even concerns, but all of those help, not hinder, your sale.
Think about your demos and presentations. Do you question hoping to find a need or do you question to find what is valuable to your buyer so that you can be most responsive to his needs and thereby increase your own chances for success?
Anne Miller
Make What You Say Pay!