If you feel awkward asking questions it may be because you aren't asking the right questions in the right order for the right reason. Effective questioning is definitely a skill and the best sales people are masters at. But most sales people ask questions that do little to help them with their sales success. It's a big mistake to ask questions that you could easily know the answer to if you'd just done your homework. Business owners and executives have zero patience for educating you. And when you ask questions that are generally known they view you as inept and you've lost the sale from the start.

Are you asking irrelevant questions? These are questions that have no bearing on the actual sales conversation. While you may think these questions are helping you to establish rapport they may just be annoying the other person because they aren't giving you an appointment so you can waste their time.

How much time do you spend on background questions rather than questions that help both you and the prospect to gain clarity about their problem? If you aren't one of the top sales people you probably ask mostly background questions when you really should be asking more questions about problems. You're probably a little afraid that the prospect won't want to share the answer to these questions with you, but you're wrong.

The reason a sale happens is because the buyer has a perceived problem, and they believe your product or service is a solution to that problem. This is just as true for high end seemingly unnecessary services as it is for commodities. A buyer will purchase a commodity with little if any thought, but they will not purchase an expensive product or service as easily.

A sale won't happen unless both you and the prospect have clarity about the prospect's perceived problem. When you set the appointment the prospect may have agreed to meet with you because they're just in the beginning stages of gathering information to determine if they really want to make this purchase. Whether they're in the information gathering stage or the final selection stage your job is to help them to uncover exactly why they want to make the purchase, and why they want to make the purchase now.

Use additional questions to help the prospect to see beyond the problem and expand on how your solution would benefit them in ways they may not have thought about. There are two benefits to these questions. First, they stimulate the prospects motivation to complete the sale because this sales technique helps them to become emotionally invested in the purchase. And second, it helps them to uncover the logical reason for making the purchase now. But you aren't done yet there is one more step to take in your questioning process.

Now you have to help them to determine how your solution is more valuable than the money you're asking them for in exchange. You began uncovering this as you expanded on how your solution benefits the prospect in ways they hadn't thought about. Help them to quantitatively determine the value of your solution in terms of dollars or emotions. When they can articulate how the value of your solution is less than the money you're asking for, you have a sale.