Selling is all about finding the way your product can add value to your prospective customer greater than the price you are asking for it. 

Why is it then that most selling activities I see are the commercial equivalent of “flashing” your wares and hoping the” flashee” is interested in buying?

Surely asking questions is a better way to find out what they may have a need for, often unrecognised until you are able to demonstrate the value of your solution.

So, ask questions, keep them open ended, focus on benefits delivered by your product, not on their features, and discuss them in the context of the prospects environment, which you define by questions.

Looking at a sales pitch as a negotiation, rather than simply a selling exercise can assist the process of questioning, identifying the other parties “buttons” is a part of the game, and the way to do that is with questions. 

Still the best sales book ever written is “Spin Selling” by Neil Rackham, and this focuses on the process of questioning a prospect, leading to a sale.

It works.