Whether we realize it or not, selling is based on relationships. And the only real relationships we can count on are those that arise out of intelligent conversations between two people. Conversations are the foundation of selling.
In the end, we will sell, or fail to sell, based on the quality of our conversations with our customers. If we display genuine curiosity, and ask appropriate do-based questions, we will sell more of our products and services to our customers. If we don’t, we won’t.

Do-based questions are questions that focus, not on what we think the other person needs, or what we think his or her problem is, or what we think the potential pain is, but on what the other person is actually doing.

…If you never learn, or even bother to ask about, what this person is doing, or what this person’s objectives are on the job or in other realms of his life, then you will not be in much of a position to initiate or expand the relationship.

-Stehpen Schiffman, Sales Essentials, 106-107.