Sales Closing Questions – 3 Closing Questions You MUST Ask to Close More Sales

If you’re in sales, the best thing you can learn to do is shut up and listen.

When salespeople actively listen, they can truly discover and understand their prospects’ biggest challenges. That means that you can present a solution that’s a no-brainer investment.

But how do you get difficult prospects to open up and share what’s really going on in their world? Questions.

But not just any questions—you need strategic sales closing questions that will move your sales presentations towards an easy close.

By asking the right questions, you can avoid frustrating sales objections, build rapport with prospects, and close bigger and more sales than ever before.

In this video and article, I’m going to share the three sales closing questions you MUST ask to close more sales. Check it out!

How to Ask the Right Sales Closing Questions

When it comes to sales, there are two types of questions you could be asking: effective and ineffective.

Effective sales closing questions help you build credibility in sales and land more deals; ineffective questions waste time and fail to keep things moving in the right direction.

Unfortunately, most salespeople are asking ineffective questions.

In fact, there are only a few questions you should ask prospects in every selling situation.

Everything else is just fluff.

Read on to learn how to ask the right questions to close more deals and crush your sales goals.

#1: “What does this challenge cost you?”

The first step to asking the right sales closing questions is to dig into your prospect’s key challenges.

Only after a thorough discussion of those challenges—challenges you’re equipped to solve—can you transition to asking the right sales closing questions.

Start your sales presentation by exploring your prospect’s biggest challenges.

Then, start navigating towards your solution—and the close—by asking the first of three sales closing questions: “What does this challenge cost you?”

By asking this in a sincere tone after listening carefully to what’s going on in your prospect’s world, you’ll nearly always get a full, detailed response.

This is one of the most powerful sales closing questions, because it helps you create clear value for your solution and provide context for your prospect before you present the cost of a product or service.

For example, let’s say a prospect responds, “Well, I would say these challenges are costing me $3 million.”

Now, a solution that costs $300,000 seems like a no-brainer, because the investment is going to pay off ten-fold.

Any time you’re going to present a solution that requires a significant investment, you must include this in your list of sales closing questions.

This is key to creating value and building context around your buying decision.

#2: “What could you see investing to solve that challenge?”

Effective sales closing questions build on one another, so this next question is designed to follow the first one.

With the first question, you’ve discovered the cost of a challenge and created context around the buying decision to help you close more sales.

Now, it’s time to ask the next of the three sales closing questions, “What could you see investing to solve that challenge?”

This is the best way to establish a budget with your prospect.

Simply asking, “What’s your budget?” can lead prospects to avoid the question or low-ball their answer.

These sales closing questions will instead guide your prospect to think about what the challenge is costing them before deciding what the solution is worth.

In other words, the cost of the challenge will actually help shape their budget.

When you ask this as one of your sales closing questions, you let prospects set the bar—a powerful step that equips you to present a solution accordingly.

If the prospect’s stated budget is too low, you can deal with that in the moment, rather than going through all the work to put together a proposal that was doomed to be rejected.

On the other hand, if your offering costs less than the budget a prospect gives, you’ll be able to propose a more expensive solution confidently and ultimately close more and bigger sales.

That makes this question one of the most important sales closing questions to ask in any selling situation.

#3: “What’s your typical decision-making process?”

Far too many salespeople waste time proposing a solution to someone who doesn’t have the authority to make a buying decision.

They’ll get to the end of a selling situation where everything seems to be going well, so they present a solution—only to hear, “Oh, well, you know what? I actually need to run this by so-and-so.”

No salesperson ever wants to hear that—but luckily, the last of our sales closing questions can stave it off for good.

This runaround can be avoided by simply asking the sales closing question, “What’s your typical decision-making process?”

The answer will reveal whether or not a prospect intends to make a decision in the near future and whether other decision makers are involved.

If you discover that a prospect isn’t serious about solving their challenges, you can disqualify them and move on to a better selling opportunity.

If other decision makers are involved, you can make sure you’ve met with them as well before proposing your solution.

90% of buyers report that selection committees “usually” or “always” include one member who tries to influence the decision their way—so failure to meet with everyone involved is sales suicide.

Making this one of your go-to sales closing questions will save you time and ultimately help you close more sales.

Establishing the decision-making process by always including this question in your sales closing questions is absolutely critical to your success in sales.

Conclusion: Sales Closing Questions Make Selling Easier

It’s no secret that sales is hard.

There are cold calls, rejections, and that pesky response of “I have to think it over.”

Sales simply isn’t for the faint of heart.

But with the right sales closing questions, you can confidently guide even the toughest prospects towards a successful close.

In fact, sales closing questions make the entire process easier for both you and your prospect.

Start by having a thorough discovery meeting to discover your prospect’s biggest challenges—challenges you’re equipped to help them solve.

Then, simply ask, “What does this challenge cost you?”

Finding out the cost of their challenges is an important step towards establishing value for your solution and providing some context to the buying decision.

Ultimately, this will prevent prospects from shopping around on you.

Next, establish a budget by asking, “What could you see investing to solve that challenge?”

Because your prospect has just vocalized the cost of their challenge, they’re more likely to give you a fair budget that will help you shape a proposal for a no-brainer solution.

Before giving that proposal, remember to ask the last of the sales closing questions, “What’s your typical decision-making process?”

This will help you uncover any speed bumps on the road to closing the deal before they trip you up and cost you the sale.

So, there have it. Now you know the three sales closing questions you MUST ask in order to close more sales.

I want to hear from you. Have you ever asked one of these questions before? If so, what was the result? Be sure to share below in the comments section. I’ll respond to as many comments as I possibly can.