iProbes – Dynamite Questions for More Focused Customer Conversations

We all have seen the changes in our day-to-day activities because of the “iProducts” Apple has introduced around the globe.  In the world of selling skills, Xerox Learning Systems, way back in the early 1970’s brought us the word “probing” for open and closed ended questions. You might say these questions are the “transistor radio” questions that have been continually employed by sales people to uncover customer situations, problems and issues.

Asking good questions is at the heart of consultative B2B selling. My sales hero, Jeffrey Gitomer, relates if a salesperson can’t ask good questions, he/she won’t be successful. Good probes unlock the door to a potential sale. Let’s look at probes that really advance the business discussion towards a mutually beneficial close where the customer wants to buy your solutions.

I call them iProbes.

iProbes involve the customer to delve deeper into their circumstance and issues by getting the customer to imagine and think about the impact of the problems and issues your solution can solve. There are two types of iProbes, the Imagine Probe, and, the Impact Probe.

Imagine Probes are questions which encourage both you and the customer to learn more about customer issues by encouraging the customer to analyze his/her situation and speculate on possibilities for improvements or alternative ways to view their current situation.

Imagine Probes benefit the B2B sales conversation by:

• Helping the customer to develop thoughtful imagination, often enabling the customer to see his/her situation in a new way or gain new insights
• Improving your B2B relationship as you are seen as a thinking business partner, not a robotic probing machine, interested in assisting the customer to succeed in his/her business.
• Enabling you to gather more relevant information to create better focused solutions that can be a competitive advantage.

Let’s review some examples of Imagine Probes. They employ thinking verbs that allow the B2B discussion to imagine new ways to view problems and solutions.

• Analyze – If you were to analyze the pluses and minuses of your current installation, what do you see?
• Compare – Comparing your last implementation with what you require now, what might you do differently?
• Consider – Have you considered the customer responses to these changes?
• Contrast – May we contrast the differences in your business now versus 10 years ago?
• Evaluate – Let’s evaluate the alternatives.
• Explore – Can we explore deeper into the causes of this problem?
• Reflect – If you were to reflect on your past success, what factors were most important?
• Suppose – Suppose we step back and view the problem from a different perspective, say from the HR point of view, how might people react to this change?

Imagine Probes really help break open the B2B conversation and it is amazing what you and the customer learn together!

The second type of iProbe, the Impact Probe, has a different purpose. Impact Probes focus the customer on the importance of his/her problem and the impact of leaving the problem “as is.”  Using the Impact Probes can heighten the customer consequences of not solving a business problem across finance, performance, image, security or order issues.

Most sales people use Impact Probes to create a customer awareness of the negative impact of leaving a problem “as is.”  I have found positive Impact Probes also work well with customers who are exploring expansion, greenfield, or new market opportunities.  Here are some examples of Impact Probes.

• What might be the effect on productivity if this problem is not solved?
• What will be the impact on your profit if this product launch is a success?
• How has the incursion of new competition affected your sales?
• What results can you expect from a higher customer satisfaction rating?
• How will your team feel about this change in your strategy?
• What might be the consequences of not turning this situation around?
• What are the positives of moving ahead with a process change?
• Leaving things ‘as is’ can be an alternative, what’s your opinion?
• What could be the repercussions of not solving this problem?

It is easy to see how Impact Probes will “wake up” the customer to both the importance of solving a problem and the impact of doing so. They provide a gateway for you to discuss with the customer how to solve their problem with your company’s solutions that can lead to positive outcomes for your customer.

iProbes are powerful. They lift up your professional image and trust with the customer as a thinking, consultative salesperson. Use them and see how your sales conversations take on a whole new dimension that moves you from a standard probing sales person to one who is focused on solving customer problems for mutual success!