The Art of Listening

No overview of a sales or client development process would be complete without at least mentioning listening skills and questions.  Questions are the building blocks of our client development process.

To be truly effective on a sales call, a salesperson needs to speak only 20 to 30 percent of the time.  This means that the vast majority of your time is spent in the simple act of listening.  How many of us truly understand the art of listening? How many know that the art of listening is the capacity to understand another’s personal world of meaning?

The great American psychologist, William James said, “The greatest need of the human soul is the need for appreciation, the need to feel important.” Listening is how you show someone that you care about them.  We may care about someone, or say we care about them, but they’ll never know it unless we listen to them.

If you want to really succeed in professional sales, you need to develop the unique quality of being able to look a person directly in the eyes and patiently and carefully listen to that person without feeling bothered.  By displaying this type of empathy and acceptance, you create an atmosphere where real trust can flourish.  This enables your prospects to feel safe enough to reveal their problems and the true emotional impact of these problems.  Consequently, when it is time for you to present the solution, your prospect is more receptive and better able to develop the conviction necessary to bring about a successful outcome.

Are you listening to people? Or are you waiting for your turn to talk?  Do you take the time to really understand their world, to see it through their eyes? Or do you look for someone to hear your story?  If you consistently and progressively make a shift from talking less to listening more, you will experience a shift in your business and relationships that will astound you.

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