More Techniques to Keep It Going

One of the simplest ways of asking for more information is to repeat the last word or words that a person said, but as a question.

“I was hoping we’d go on vacation this year,” says your wife.

“Vacation this year?”

“Yes, to Paris.”

“Paris?”

“It’s so lovely in the spring. And with the money I just won from the lottery, our financial problems are over.”

Yeah, right—in your dreams, Dominick.

But seriously, the technique works pretty well because it not only asks for more information, but it does so without narrowing down the direction that information can come from. The subject is volunteering what he or she thinks is important.

Open-ended questions—basically things that can’t be answered yes or no—are the same way. They’re requests for information, a bit more directed than simple mirroring or repeating, but still more liable to retrieve real intelligence than a sharply directed closed-end question.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a time or place to ask yes or no. “Is this important to you?” is often an extremely valuable question. It’s just not one you ask to keep the conversation going.