Getting the right information from prospects helps you prioritize potential leads and projects and won't have you running around unnecessarily after hot air.
High-gain questions allow you to get information that otherwise won't necessarily be provided. Important information isn't often volunteered by smart prospective clients.
First of all, you've got to ask because if you don't ask, you don't get. For example, "if everything in the proposal was ok, what date were you thinking of starting the project?" Such a simple question like that avoids spending priority time on clients who weren't thinking of starting the project until the next year!
If a client is reluctant to answer simple questions, a good way of eliciting a response is to provide options for them to choose. For example "if everything in the proposal was ok, would you kick this project off next week, or next month, or later in the year?", or "ok, so you don't have a set budget but what kind of ballpark were you thinking of, $25k, $150k or $300k?"
If you ask a prospect a question, you should patiently wait for the answer. If you jump in with an answer before they do you've saved them from having to answer the question themselves.
