Author's Note: As a practitioner of communication psychology, I ask people questions. Over the years, I've learned to listen in a certain way that nurtures trust and builds credibility. It also allows me to tap into my intuition, which helps me discover ideas that are both relevant and more creative for my client. The essence of question-based conversations is to focus on the other person – exclusively!

How long have you worked in the financial industry? If it's more than five years, you've seen sales approaches come and go. Are they all just fads, or do they move us along a continuum of professional improvement. I say the latter. Tracking the approaches over the years, I've seen a distinct improvement.

The newest approaches are questions-based and take us a giant step in the right direction. They are called by various names, including: solution-focused selling, values-based selling, consultative selling and spin selling. The idea is, you ask questions, thereby showing that you want to help your client, rather than just try to make a sale. That's good. It takes us in the right direction. But, it's not enough.