Ask, Not Tell

I had an opportunity recently learning together with a number of trainers on selling / negotiation stills.   The event was led by a very experienced Master Trainer.   I learnt something new from him, which can be applicable to other training topics as well.

His intention was to highlight which stage in a sales call is more important.   He did not just tell us.   Instead, he first asked us to pick from the slide (showing the 4 stages) which one we believe to be most important.   Most chose B.   Then, he said, ‘Recall your sales call in the past few months.  In which stage you spent most of your time on?’    Most chose D.   Instantly, he highlighted a sharp contrast (or even self-contradiction) which drew a great deal of attention from the learners.  You can imagine that we then had heated discussion, and most importantly sticky learning on selling.

This technique can be applied to a lot of other topics e.g.

“How many glass of water we should drink everyday
VS
How many glass we really drank yesterday?”

Or

“Who in your team generated the most revenue last year?”
VS
“Whom in your team did you spend most of your management time on?”

There are often things which we know we should do but we do not put them into practice.   We can easily use this technique to bring out these ‘self-contradiction’.   It is like keeping them hiding in the training room, and then asking all learners to face them (or in fact ‘themselves’).