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tags: A2, Discovery
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# Controlling the speed of a conversation

Closed and open questions can be used to control the speed of a conversation. You may think:

*"Wait a second, what do you mean by "speed of a conversation"*?

Think of the speed of a a conversation as a car with stick shift. There are different gears you can and need to shift through in order to accelerate and gain speed.


*Source: Inspired by "The Saas Sales Method Fundamentals", Van der Kooij / Levin*

Examples:

1. Closed: How many employees do you have?
2. Closed with context: On LinkedIn I noticed you currently have 150 employees. Does this sound right?
3. Open: What is your key challenge with recruiting sales talent?
4. Open with context: Many companies we work with struggle finding sales talent for Germany. What are the key challenges you are facing?

As with driving a car, you typically start slow giving the other person a chance to get comfortable. You do this by asking easy, closed questions. You then gradually speed up shifting to open questions.

You don't necessarily have to go through all gears though. It's okay to skip one or start in second gear. You just need to be aware of the dynamics.

Example of how to use it:

> You: “Are you currently looking for SDRs?” (Gear 1)
> Prospect: “Yes”

> You: "On LinkedIn I noticed you hired career changers with no prior sales experience as SDRs in the past. Is that right?" (Gear 2)
> Prospect: “Yes”

> You: “Many companies we work with hire career changers but struggle with not having the bandwith to properly train them. What does your current onboarding process look like?” (Gear 4)
> Prospect: "Yeah, I can imagine and that sounds about like us. We currently don't.... ."

:::info
**Practical tip:** Sometimes you may feel the person you talk to is not very responsive, only giving short answers without a real flow. Often that's because you only ask closed ended questions. Mix it up by asking open questions!
:::

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