A big part of sales is asking questions of the client to get a good idea of what they are looking for and responding to their questions in turn. One of the biggest things to avoid is getting trapped or shut down by a clients question. This normally happens when the client asks a hard to answer question that would take a while to explain correctly. Sales people get trapped when they answer one of these questions at length and they promptly receive another question  from the client. Over time this snow balls until the client is the only one asking questions and the sales person is stuck answering questions and doing most of the talking. One can avoid this in many different ways. First, the sales person should be asking the questions and letting the client respond, making the client do most of the talking. Second, if asked a question respond to it in a manner that answers the question but does not go on for too long. Third, every answer you give should end with a question to the client. This way the client must answer your question first before asking you another one. This avoid the client asking several question in a row which in turn makes the sales person do more talking than they should. Fourth, if you think the proper answer to the question is to lengthy it is best to answer in a short way and mention that the question can be explained more in depth at another time. The main way to avoid getting trapped by questions is to keep the client talking. Using the methods and ideas listed above a sales person can do just that with little effort. If a sales person can avoid getting trapped by a barrage of questions they can stay on course and have a easier time getting a sale.

3 thoughts on “How to Avoid Getting Trapped”
  1. I think this blog post is very helpful because it can be very easy to get trapped. Pink talks about this in his book where you should never answer an unasked question. I think this holds true in this situation, and also keeping your answer short and concise is best.

  2. These are all really good strategies to avoid being stuck. Especially answering every question with a question. It can be really risky to answer a question without knowing the true intent behind it.

  3. Great topic! Getting trapped is always a difficult situation to be in as a salesperson. You give some great advice about answering a question with a question. This is a very effective way to get out of a situation when you are trapped as a salesperson!

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