The Richwood Report

Monster.com, the employment site has a daily article for sales professionals and a large archive of sales-related articles. Today, the headline article centers on the skillful use of questions to focus the interest of customers. More and more sales professionals are learning that the questions they ask and the way they ask them either draws more attention from the customer or throws cold water on the process. Another article (in the archive--Look around for more.) tells how to maintain sales by retaining more customers. A sample:

Manage expectations
But you need to manage expectations. Customers with unrealistic expectations of what they want and what you can deliver will never be happy. They'll waste your time and then take their business elsewhere. Your job as salesperson includes teaching your customers what they can realistically expect from your product or service. Ask the customer: Six months from now, how will you know if this purchase was a success or failure? With the insights you get from the answer, you can properly guide the customer's expectations and set yourself up for success.