Knowing what information you want to discover on a sales call is a good idea. Preparing a list of specific questions to ask on the call is a bad idea. Those two statements sound similar but they are vastly different. If you go in with a list of questions to ask, you run the risk of having the meeting feel like an interrogation to the prospect rather than a discussion. You will be inwardly focused trying to remember the questions and the order you want to ask them (and maybe even the wording) rather than focusing on what the prospect is saying. You then will miss subtle ques the prospect may give you about what concerns them. the questions you prepared may not fit the conversation exactly and may appear to be out of context to the prospect. The flow of the conversation will be interrupted. If any or all of this happens you will appear to be very “salesy” or worse out of touch.
It is a better idea to go into the call knowing what you need to find out and lead the conversation to a discussion of those topics. The exact questions you ask will be context based. That is, they will flow naturally from what the prospect has said just prior to the question you want to ask. Depend on your ability to formulate the question in a way that fits the conversation.
