Open-ended questions are essential for closing deals

[mouakter13]

Sales reps are encouraged to ask open-ended questions to try to discover as much as possible about their prospects.

The logic behind this is that the prospect will tell the sales representative about their problems, hoping they can solve them together. Closed questions, which can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no," are prohibited.

SPIN research found that the sales industry's obsession with asking open-ended questions wasn't supported by solid evidence. The book showed that the number of open-ended questions sales reps asked made no difference to their closing rates.

In fact, Rackham discovered that the most successful betting database salespeople also used closed questions. However, they only did so to elicit information that would advance the sale. As he wrote in the book:

“In other words, none of our studies showed that the classic distinction between open-ended and closed-ended questions had any significance in high-end sales calls.”


It's common for sales reps to be able to predict sales objections before they occur. In fact, dealing with sales objections is usually unavoidable.

But as expected, Rackham refutes this in the SPIN method. He says sales objections don't always occur. His research has shown that they can be prevented if reps ask the right questions early.