During my graduate work in training and development, I took a psychology class. Toward the middle of the semester, the professor asked to help him review more than 20 years of research on the ways people communicate.

It sounded like a lot of work, and I really didn’t have the time. But he had been very helpful to me, and now he needed my help. I agreed.

Most of the material I reviewed addressed open and closed questions. Interestingly, what I learned applies to selling.

Do your Questions Differentiate You?

In sales, you must differentiate and brand yourself, gather key information and move your existing relationships forward. But chances are the customer thinks whatever you’re selling is similar to what the competition provides. To counter that, you must establish a strong business relationship, separate yourself and become a significant partner in the customer’s practice. And to make it happen, you need to engage in relevant dialogue.

While analyzing the communication research, I came across several interesting studies that made me think differently about questions, how we present them and how salespeople use them to build and develop relationships.

What Makes Your Question a Dud?

According to the research, people ask too many “recital questions”—those that prompt the subject to recite what they already know. Educator Meredith Gall suggests that recital questions encourage someone to recall information that requires little to no thinking. When a customer answers a recital question, they recite a response they probably already provided in a previous conversation.

Think of all of the sales questions you asked prior to reading this. Were they recital questions? If so, you could be boring your customers by covering the same ground they’ve already covered with someone else. If your customer meets with five salespeople a day, that amounts to 25 a week, 100 per month and more than 1,000 sales conversations per year. Don’t make your customer answer the same question hundreds of times.

What Makes a Better Question?

The research suggests the solution lies in shifting from a recital question to a dialogue question. Dialogue questions stimulate a complex thinking process involving a longer exchange that solicits opinion and thought—not just a correct answer.

When calling on customers, engage them in dialogue. Your goal is to get them talking at least 70% of the time. When you ask a dialogue question, you create the possibility of change—and change leads to new thinking. Your goal is to craft a question that gets the customer to stop, reflect and respond with an original answer.

Charles D. Brennan, Jr. is the author of McGraw Hill’s “Take Your Sales to the Next Level” and director of the Brennan Sales Institute, a leading provider of advanced sales training programs.