Starting a conversion is something we do on a daily basis, so it piqued my interest when in one of our past classes we talked about some ideas of a conversion starter and the dos and don’ts of starting up a conversation.
In many cases, most of us start a conversation with questions like “What do you do?” While a common question asks, it does not make it a good conversation starter for a couple of reasons that will be listed. The first reason is that you run the risk of giving people the impression that you define them by what they do, even if you are not trying to do so. The second reason why you should not start a conversation in this manner is because it makes the receiver of the question feel uneasy or tense. The receiver feels like they must live up to the expectations that you require them to meet by asking a question like this. As the conversation starts, you may just be trying to figure out more about them, or maybe you just want to find something you have in common that you might be able to expand your conversation upon. This causes you to unknowingly start to turn them away from you.
The number one thing you don’t want to do as a salesperson is to make the potential customer feel uneasy. Ask more open-ended questions, giving them the chance to respond in a multitude of ways, A good one that I hear is “Where are you from” which can lead to a multitude of answers that can be built from
As a salesperson, make sure you make the customer feel comfortable and at ease by asking open-ended questions.
BoweryJE22
Hey Dallas, I like what you have said here! It makes a lot of sense because usually when starting a conversation with a client, we tend to say things that we shouldn’t. Developing the skill of asking open-ended questions about someone like the one you have stated in your blog post is a simple and yet good start to a conversation, it doesn’t put the client on the edge and it’s an easy question to ask and yet many answers can come along with this question.
Dallas this is great! I agree with what you said here about making your customer feel at ease. You never want your customer feeling uncomfortable, so starting off by talking about things outside of business is not a bad idea if you know them on a bit of a personal level as well. Good job!