Build Your Desire to Listen

Whats that thing Mom used to say?  God gave you two ears and one mouth.   Active lis­ten­ing is the best great­est skill a sales per­son can carry in their bag. Unfor­tu­nately nearly all sales train­ing revolves around talk­ing, pre­sent­ing and plac­ing the buy­ing influ­ences into categories.

Good lis­ten­ing skills is an art form that take a ton of practice

The first step towards devel­op­ing your lis­ten­ing skills is to get moti­vated! Build your desire to lis­ten by under­stand­ing the pos­i­tive impact that this “non-verbal” behav­ior will have on your income and how it will enhance your rela­tion­ships. If you really want to lis­ten, the odds are that you already have had some train­ing or intu­itively know how to listen.

Let’s use the acronym TRIP to learn about the ben­e­fits of listening:

Trust

Rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion

Infor­ma­tion

Per­for­mance

Trust

Lis­ten­ing is the best way to estab­lish rap­port and trust with a buyer. Con­sider this ques­tion: “Would you trust some­one who lacks the matu­rity to lis­ten to your needs?”

Rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion

If you lis­ten, then the buyer may lis­ten to you. The norm of rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion (a social psy­chol­ogy con­cept) dic­tates that one kind­ness nor­mally is met (or returned) by sim­i­lar behav­ior. If you want a buyer to lis­ten to your pre­sen­ta­tion, then you have to lis­ten to them.

Infor­ma­tion

Lis­ten­ing gives you the abil­ity to gather valu­able infor­ma­tion from the buyer. Ask the nec­es­sary ques­tions to under­stand buyer’s needs and clar­ify to get he best infor­ma­tion possible.

Per­for­mance

Sales will rise and com­mis­sions will grow if your lis­ten­ing improves. The best way to build value is to under­stand the needs and wants of your buy­ers. Your solu­tions should match these buyer require­ments if you ask the right ques­tions and then lis­ten. You will be able to sell more and earn more by lis­ten­ing more.

Per­haps the great­est moti­va­tion of all is to pic­ture the worst lis­tener that you know. What prob­lems does this per­son cre­ate with poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion and per­pet­ual mis­un­der­stand­ings? Now, imag­ine a time where your poor lis­ten­ing cost you a sale, or worse, a friendship.

In sum­mary, you have to WANT to lis­ten if you think com­mu­ni­ca­tion builds trust and earns the right to be heard. In addi­tion, gain valu­able infor­ma­tion by improv­ing your ques­tion­ing skills to boost your earn­ings and improve your relationships.

One Response to “ Build Your Desire to Listen ”

1. Jeff says:

   September 4, 2009 at 9:36 am

   Sales Peo­ple slam sales books and sales gurus, self-help and improve­ment books in general.…..but Steven Covey (7 Habits of Highly suc­cess­ful peo­ple) says we need to “seek first to under­stand, then to be understood”

   Sounds like a call to lis­ten, my sales brotha’s and sista’s

   Right on !