Does anyone have any tips or tricks on coaching sales reps out of "one way" conversations? How do you teach someone to let the customer do most of the talking?

1. Coach sales people to ask open questions. 

2. Spend majority of face to face time with customers to learn about what they have tried before, why hasn’t it worked, how do they make buying decisions, which people participate the process etc

3. This is easier if you hire people that are curious and open minded by nature.

It starts with hiring imho.

Here are my 3 tips:

Sales reps should:
- aks open questions 
- drive the conversation by continuing to ask when, how, why, who and where.
- make sure they stay mindfull of customer speaking at least 70% of the time during a meeting.

That’s just my 2 cents after 15 years of B2B hugh-tech sales.

Teach them Customer centric mindset, MEDICCPICC and Precision Questioning Techniques. Usually we let the customer do more of the talking in the discovery and prospecting stage and then again during the closing. We need to know what they have in mind and to align to that requirements. How can one uncover these if they talk most of the time?! Mindset is key and I will also teach them Buyer first or customer centric thinking. 

Here are my 3 tips:

Sales reps should:
- aks open questions 
- drive the conversation by continuing to ask when, how, why, who and where.
- make sure they stay mindfull of customer speaking at least 70% of the time during a meeting.

That’s just my 2 cents after 15 years of B2B hugh-tech sales.

Cheers
Roelof

building on Steve and Sylvia's valuable points: 
1) Role plays-- definitely, and having them role play both the customer and the seller so they understand why asking questions is important
2) Role modeling -- letting them watch a senior sales person who does this well can be very powerful too... and also ensuring that when coaching sales people, the coachee is asking questions as well