Why Asking Open-Ended Questions Is Harder Than It Seems

Most salespeople know they should ask open-ended questions.

That’s not the problem.

The problem is actually doing it.

Try this exercise.

For the next five minutes, have a conversation with someone and only ask questions that start with:

What

How

Tell me

Describe

Sounds easy.

It isn’t.

Within a few questions, most of us slip back into:

“Do you…?”

“Are you…?”

“Have you…?”

“Is that…?”

Closed questions are incredibly natural.

And there’s nothing inherently wrong with them.

The problem is that they often produce short answers.

“Do you like your current supplier?”

“Yes.”

“Are deliveries usually on time?”

“Mostly.”

“Have you had any problems?”

“Not really.”

Now compare that with:

“What do you like about working with your current supplier?”

“How reliable have deliveries been?”

“What problems have you experienced?”

You’ve given the prospect somewhere to go.

And that matters because discovery depends on getting people talking.

The more they talk, the more you learn.

The more you learn, the easier it becomes to understand what actually matters to them.

So don’t just tell your salespeople:

“Ask more open-ended questions.”

Practice it.

Give them a topic.

Make them have a conversation using only:

What. How. Tell me. Describe.

They’ll struggle.

That’s the point.

Because knowing what an open-ended question is and being able to produce one naturally in the middle of a conversation are two very different skills.

And skills get better through practice.