As a salesperson working for a high-end firm, Dawn was used to hearing that her company's services were too expensive. But the particular nut she was trying to crack this time around was proving intensely obstinate: a mid-level manager overly preoccupied with what he saw as the insurmountable barrier of high cost. Tired of running into the same brick wall, she came to me for help. I recommended a course on listening.

That's right, listening. Most people—Dawn included (her case history is real, but her name has been changed)—who are confronted with difficult clients expect a refresher lesson on clever comebacks or a list of facile bromides ("When they talk price, you talk value!"). That's the absolute wrong way to go.

The problem isn't solved, I explained, by memorizing an arsenal of smart lines and "gotcha" responses that somehow get around a client's concerns. For Dawn, the first step toward solving her dilemma had nothing to do with what she says, and everything to do with how she listens.

First, some background. Truth be told, the services of Dawn's company are costly, at least at first blush. The client she's trying to sell to targets wealthy people who drop a pile of money at the drop of a hat, but is a relative new player in the market, so every dollar spent is carefully watched. Thus the concern with costs. But Dawn's sales calls had degenerated to a case of:

"It's too expensive."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

This tug-of-war chatter might pass as conversation on the playground, but in a sales call, it's anything but productive.

Surmounting the objection

How was it possible, Dawn desperately wanted to know, to get around this immovable objection?

When confronted with a rock, too often our first reaction is to push at it ineffectually ("Our service isn't really that expensive"), attempt to shove it aside ("Yes, it's pricey, but what a great service it is!"), go around it ("Price is really relative") or, worst of all, ignore it ("You shouldn't be concerned with just costs"). No matter which of these routes you take, the rock is still in your way.

As any savvy salesperson knows, the only real choice is to face the reality and climb on top of the rock to claim it as your own. But to do that, you must take the rock seriously. As long as Dawn allowed her client to cultivate a discussion that centered on price, she was going to get nowhere—a situation that she had encountered often enough to bring her to me. She needed to learn how to become a sincere, compassionate listener. Only then could she discover what was motivating her client's concerns about price.

To get to that point, Dawn needed to develop the right questions to pinpoint the business goals of her potential client. With that information, she could then move on, deciding if and how the value—including, but not limited to, costs—of her company's services could match up with her client's goals.

When entering into an important sales meeting, few things are as crucial as developing a strategy of questioning that will elicit the information you need to discover the hidden wants and needs of your client. And so it follows: Develop good questions, listen carefully to the answers, and then construct your response to meet the challenges you hear.

The five questions

You must be able to knowledgeably and passionately articulate everything about the product or service you are selling, but you must first discover if what you have to offer fits the needs and wants of your client. And you won't know this until you gather the right information through thoughtful probing. At the heart of this approach is something you see practiced every day by TV talk show hosts. To create an entertaining interview with people that are generally complete strangers to them, the hosts work with what is known as "the five questions." Each guest slated for a spot on the show is asked to come up with five questions that are written down and given to the host ahead of time.

It's not that different for you going into a sales meeting, only the client isn't going to give you the five questions. It's up to you to skillfully construct the questions that will bring you sufficient knowledge to make a sale.

If you've done your homework, you already know the basics about the company you will be seeing: their customer base, annual sales, main competitor, market variables, etc. But what you can't know and, more importantly, should never assume to know is the measure of the goals and challenges of your client.

Assuming that you probably already know the answers to the questions you intend to ask is an especially troublesome minefield, because it means you will be less likely to listen carefully and gain insights. Worse still, it telegraphs to your client that you are flying on autopilot.

Listen and grow rich

In my book, Beating the Deal Killers: Overcoming Murphy's Law (and Other Sales Nightmares), I made sure to emphasize what I consider the single most important key to successful sales: Listen and grow rich.

Getting clients to open up and frankly discuss the issues of key importance to them should begin with a gentle, sincere request for permission to ask your questions. "Tom, in order to make the best recommendation possible for your company, I'm going to need some background information that will allow us to determine whether or not what we offer will make a good fit. Is that okay with you?"

When Tom says yes, it opens several doors. You acquire the ability to ask the questions you need to get the answers you want. It also lets you take control of the conversation and set the tone for the meeting.

Questions allow your clients to reveal themselves through their answers. In particular, they allow you to discover your client's frustrations and challenges and, in turn, give you the opportunity to fix these situations. Sifting those challenges from your client's answers takes a keen ear. Watch for certain words that may signal a key frustration the client faces, such as always, bad, gap, main issue, mandate, vital, risk, must, worry and so on. Listen carefully, and the client will tell you the problem.

The power of "you said"

When you present your solution, you can lead off with, "Now, Tom, you said that you worry that the money you're spending on marketing won't be reflected in increased sales fast enough." By using "you said," you are quoting the person your client listens to most: him or herself. "You said" are the two most powerful words in sales.

Now, back to my client, Dawn. After our course, she invited her client for a one-on-one lunch at a nice, quiet restaurant. The setting was conducive to some comfortable chitchat about kids and schools. Then they got down to business. Dawn made it clear that if they continued along the lines where they had been heading, they would never make any progress. Instead, Dawn invited the client to discuss all the major issues to help her understand his point of view.

That position of knowledge allowed Dawn to successfully challenge her client's assumptions using questions that made him rethink his point of view regarding pricing. As Dawn related to me in a follow-up memo, "It was a real, civil dialogue. As we left the restaurant, I remembered your credo of acknowledging what's on the line for the client." At that point, Dawn, showing true empathy, said she understood how difficult it must be for him to go into the CEO's office and have to explain the lack of results from the partnerships her client had established. "Bingo!" Dawn wrote.

My latest memo from Dawn explained how she and a colleague recently presented a new marketing plan to the client, one that he described as "terrific ideas that we could really make work for our mutual benefit."

Stephen Giglio (www.giglioco.com) is a sales professional and trainer, as well as the author of Beating the Deal Killers: Overcoming Murphy's Law (and Other Sales Nightmares)