Why not just ask open ended questions?" This is such a critical part to the sales process and so important to understand and do well.

One of the first things many people learn when going into sales is the distinction between asking open versus closed questions and I train in these specific areas see http://www.dinanmite.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8&Itemid=8

Closed questions are "generally" considered "bad", because they create a  yes or no response.

Open questions on the other hand are "generally" considered "good" because they require the other person to talk, to explain, to elaborate on something in order to answer the question.

This distinction is in fact not really an issue of which type is good, bad, or best for selling.

Both open and closed questions can be good (or bad) for selling depending on the timing of when you ask a particular type of question.

Open questions are particularly helpful in the discovery stage of the sale, the part where you are gathering information about what the prospects wants, pains, needs,and requirements are.

Closed questions can be helpful there as well though as a means of confirming your understanding of something that a prospect told you.

Simply having a strategy of "I am going to ask a lot open ended questions on this sales call" will get the prospect talking, but it doesn't guide them enough to a point where you can start making a sale.

The problem with such a strategy is that you tend to meander in your questioning approach. You meander because you don't really have a destination in mind of where you are going.

Create the pain & create more sales

One of the principles of  Selling is that you can't sell someone something that they don't want.This presents a dilemma for you if you want to sell to more prospects than just those few that contact you asking to purchase your product.The temptation is to tell people about all the great things about your product or service and that temptation is the source of your dilemma and pain.

People don't want your product or service , whatever your product or service is.People want what your product or service can do for them,they want the end result that your product  or service can give them.People want to eliminate or minimize they pain they are having in some area of their personal or business lives but what if prospects don't come to you asking you to eliminate their pain with your product oir service?

Or what if your product or service is new, and people don't even know it exists?Sometimes people don't have a pain until you show them that they do.When the prospect is not aware of your product, or any type of product or service like yours, you need to get the prospect to see what they are missing out on.You do this by asking if they are experiencing similar results that people who use your product or service are experiencing.

A good example right now is Apple's new iPhone.With an iPhone, you can send an email and have a phone conversation simultaneously.For serious multitaskers, this represents a time savings.Previous digital gadgets didn't allow this multi-tasking capability. People had no pain in this area because no device offered such a multi-tasking capability.Once the iPhone became available, people who heard about is new multi-tasking capabilities wanted it, and they now had a pain that they didn't have before.

Apple created a pain where none existed before in the emotions of digital multi-taskers and you can do the same. People won't ask about what you have, until they know that you have something that solves problem for them and sometimes they won't even know that they have a problem, until you open up the gap and show them what they are
missing.