Listening and Questioning

Overview

The shortest sales course in the world: 1) ask questions, 2) listen.

Listening and questioning are undoubtedly the two most important skills in the sales and customer service professions. HOW you ask questions and WHAT you ask about often determine whether you’re going to be given the opportunity to listen so you want to make sure you do it correctly.

Performance Outcomes

As a result of participating in Listening & Questioning, you should be able to apply active listening and effective questioning skills to understand our customer’s needs and concerns, to improve customer relations, and to increase sales. Specifically, you should be able to:

• Recognize how easily miscommunication can take place and describe the consequences of miscommunication.
• Determine the customer’s true meaning.
• Check your own personal filters or biases.
• Demonstrate effective listening.
• Use questioning tools — including FIRST Questions — to improve effectiveness.

Activities

Activities include an exercise in recognizing how easily miscommunication can take place, checking your own personal filters or biases, an exercise in listening, an exercise in creating effective questions, and a questioning and listening role play.