Use your prospect's key words and phrases when you present your ideas. Learn your prospect's emotional cues as you probe. Selling is a people skills business. If this were not true, your company would sell its products via direct mail without the costly overhead of using salespeople. Whenever I hear of a salesperson with low production, the first item on the recovery list is to check out his people skills.
Many managers spend a majority of time teaching product knowledge.
Unfortunately, product knowledge is only a small fraction of the art of successful sales. I recently spoke to an salesperson in Tennessee, who according to his peers had substandard product knowledge. But as long as I can keep my clients' trust, I can hire CPA's and MBA's to be technicians. They can inform me on product changes while I can concentrate on maintaining rapport with my clients. Use these techniques the next time you probe or interview.