Selling is the key to any business large or small, however it's the one subject where most people completely fail at in their early years and never seem to recover from. Talk to anyone in a large company and you'll find many will say that they don't envy the job of the salesman. Quite how they can sit in front of a group of people, spout on about the product and interest them enough to make them part with cash is a dark art to many, perhaps that's why they earn so much.

But is it all that difficult? Why do some people seem to have a natural talent for it and others just shy away and avoid it altogether? More importantly, why do small businesses start up with absolutely no talent in selling at all and how do they think they'll ever survive?

Fact is, without at least a modicum of sales knowledge, you are going to fail. Unless you're in some kind of rare business where your products just fly off the shelf or people send you orders like a ticker-tape parade through New York, you're going to have to face up to the fact that eventually you'll need to talk to someone with the aim of getting them to buy from you.

So how do you do that? You shut up, that's how.

You've got your first meeting with a prospect and you're eager to impress, so what do you do to prepare for the up-coming meeting? I'll take the example of the web designer here because it's what I'm used to, but you'll probably be able to fit this into your own subject area easy enough.

So, a few days before the big day, it goes something like this:

• Create a powerpoint presentation of all your portfolio
• Print off some of your best designs
• Create links to your best websites
• Prepare a price list
• Write a script based on the type of company you're visiting.

Enough preperation there do you think?

You then turn up at the meeting, get your laptop out and begin to bore the bejesus out of the potential client.

Dull, dull, dull. Stoppit.

Your client really isn't bothered about you or your stuff. They want to know how you can help them and so you need to be quiet and listen. Take on the role of a consultant and don't tell them anything yet - not until you've got to the heart of the problem.

The general rule is, they should do most of the talking. If they do then you are in control, if you do most of the talking then you are simply boring them.

Like impressing people with how many transactions your application can perform in a second? They're not interested. People buy from people they trust, they do not see a sales meeting as a game of Top Trumps where you try to show off with the fastest, bestest, most elegant.

No, people like to talk about themselves, not you; so here's how to do it...

The key is to always ask the questions to keep the conversation going. This starts right up at the beginning of the meeting and you should never stop. Here' how the first 30 seconds of all our sales meetings go:

Prospect : "Can I get you a coffee?"

Me: "Are you having one?"

See? A question straight away. Get the mood right straight at the beginning of the meeting and take control away from the client. The rest of the meeting pretty much goes on in the same way:

Prospect : "We need a website to sell our widgets online, how can you do that for us?"

Me: "That's interesting, why do you want to sell them online?"

Woah! I'm actually asking them why they want to do this?!! Am I crazy?! Probably, yes, but I'll explain.

What we're doing with questions is to get the prospect to sell to themselves. There's nothing worse than an unconvinced prospect. One who is just 'testing the waters' is absolutely no good, you want them to be totally bought in and ready to buy, but you're absolutely the worst person to do this.

They must convince themselves and they'll only do that if they have enough information to make the decision. By simply asking "why do you want to do that?" the prospect must justify this expense to themselves - and unless they have particularly bad self-esteem, that should be easy.

For example:

Prospect : "We think we can sell more of these items if we do it online"

Me: "Really? Have you looked into this?"

Prospect : "Yes, it's what every-one's doing now, isn't it?"

Me: "Well, yes, it seems that way, but has anyone done this in your industry?"

Prospect : "A few, they do it really well"

Me: "And they're making lots of money I assume?"

Prospect : "Yes, it's where the big money is"

Me : "So you're willing to invest a bit to catch up then?"

.....

You get the idea?

So, if you want to get the sale, ask the questions. It's simple really and you're doing both the prospect and yourself a good service by doing this. So many people buy a product because they have been 'sold to' or because they've bought on price rather than any other feature and they've ended up with a poor product.

By using the technique above you end up with an extremely good sale of a product that the customer actually wants. This isn't some sneaky technique - it's actually good practice and a method of ensuring you give the prospect what they actually need, not what they think they need.