Practical Sales Training™ > How To Lose The Sale > Machine Gun Questioning
What is it?
If you’ve ever been on a call where you’ve been peppered with question after question – and the answers you give don’t seem to make any difference, then you have witnessed first hand the power of turning people off with machine gun questioning.
Machine gun questioning occurs when someone asks countless qualification questions and is just “going through the motions” rather than having an actual conversation.
Why does it work?
It works to turn people off because they don’t feel valued.
It feels like the person asking the questions just doesn’t care and is going through the motions – they may as well fill out an online form instead of having a call.
How can you use it?
If you want to turn people off and not connect with them, then create a massive list of qualifying questions and stick to it religiously regardless of what happens in the conversaton.
Hypothetical Example:
A potential client books a call with a marketing agency to discuss building a website. As soon as the call starts, the agency rep dives into a rapid-fire list of questions:
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“What’s your budget?”
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“How many pages do you want?”
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“What’s your timeline?”
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“What colours do you like?”
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“What’s your preferred CMS?”
The buyer answers politely at first, but after 10 minutes of nonstop questioning with no discussion or insight, they feel like they’re filling out an online form rather than having a meaningful conversation. The call feels cold and transactional, and the buyer decides not to move forward.
If the rep had slowed down, built rapport, and mixed in value-based statements like “Here’s how we usually approach projects like yours…”, the buyer would have felt heard and understood rather than interrogated.
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