Your time in front of a prospective customer is extremely valuable. The hardest part of the sales process can sometimes be just getting quality time in front of the prospect to ask questions. When you get to this point, you definitely want to make the most of your opportunity. You never know, this might be your only chance to advance the sale.

It is a great idea to take an evening to sit down and come up with a list of some great probing questions. It’s not like you will be doing this from scratch, either. This will be the time to search your memory for some of those great questions you asked before but might have forgotten. After you’ve made your list of probing questions, you have now created a great resource to review before meeting with a prospect. As time goes by, you will need to go back to this list to update it when you uncover new questions to ask.

A lot of salespeople usually have 3-4 probing questions they rely on. Because each customer and each situation is different, it is a good idea to expand your horizon in your questioning process. Chances are that you have lost sales because you didn’t ask the right question as your “go to” questions didn’t uncover any problems in the way these “lost” prospective customers were doing business.

When we don’t uncover problems in the way the customer is being served in the status quo, we cannot provide a solution. Without presenting a profit-justified solution, the chance of closing a sale is slim to zero. If you take the time to come up with an expanded list of good probing questions, you will uncover more problems and make more sales.