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Author: Mark Smock Article source: http://www.salesnewz.com/. Used with author's permission.
Today's business environment is intrinsically tied together by
ongoing information exchanges between two people. This personal
communication is most often facilitated by the spoken word.
Understanding this information, as it flows within a dialogue
between two people is fundamental to improving one's selling
effectiveness.
One of the most significant business information exchanges is
between a company's front line sales representatives and either
it's existing or potential customers. Information processed
between these parties will have a significant affect on many
other employees within both party's respective companies as
purchase commitments are made.
Maximizing the effectiveness of aural business communication
between sales personnel and customers hinges on two fundamental
communication process components, talking and listening. It
makes sense that no matter how well you articulate a message to
a customer, if it is not effectively absorbed by your target
audience the probability of sales success is greatly reduced.
Why Do Salespeople Tend to NOT Listen Well?
It is known that humans think faster than they listen. While a
sales prospect is talking at an average rate of 125 words a
minute, the average salesperson is thinking at a much more
rapid rate. The act of listening, the differential between the
salesperson's thinking rate and the prospect's speaking rate
means the salesperson's brain can and does work with hundreds
of other words, in addition to the ones being heard. Often the
salesperson is thinking about what they should or will say at
the expense of what the prospect is actually telling them.
The challenge at hand for all sales personnel is to learn how
NOT to construct their ideas and responses during the most
critical stages of their selling process. This is not easy to
do given the sales prospect is also subjecting themselves to
the same listening distractions. It is no wonder so many sales
calls "fall apart" after the salesperson missed a key point
made by the prospect and consequently lost or never got the
order.
Many business professionals, especially those who make their
living selling, depend greatly on their communication skills to
enhance their overall job performance and maximize their
income. Few salespeople have yet to even scratch the surface of
developing their optimum listening skill potential. Many sales
professionals have never had the opportunity to learn how to
listen most effectively.
Can A Salesperson Learn to Listen Better?
A comprehensive study completed at the University of Minnesota
examined the listening ability of several thousand students and
hundreds of business professionals. One of the primary
conclusions of this study was that immediately after the
average person had listened to someone talk, they remembered
only about half of what was actually said - no matter how
intensely they attempted to absorb all the information
communicated.
Our basic inability as humans to listen effectively requires us
to utilize continuous educational reinforcement to truly master
listening skills not only in a business environment but on a
personal level as well. This means for a salesperson to be most
effective in any selling situation a systematic effort must be
made to consciously attempt to concentrate more on what is said
to them, than what they will say in response … this simple
priority of aural information exchange elements will provide a
significant selling advantage in almost every possible selling
scenario.
Prioritizing listening over talking in a sales situation is
easier said than done. It takes training and ongoing
integration into any selling technique process.
Listening Skill Development Should be in All Sales Training
Any training, especially sales training, should improve
listening skills development. Like any skill set, practice in a
controlled setting can not only build self awareness of
listening deficiencies, but it can reinforce required skills to
leverage other, associated selling tactics integrated in the
sales process. As Vince Lombardi once said, "It's not practice
makes perfect, its PERFECT practice makes perfect!"
Six Steps to Improving Selling Listening Skills
Again, with practice and conscious resolve, a salesperson can
acquire the mental agility to become a better listener by
mastering these six "mental listening exercises":
1) Learn to "listen ahead":
By "listening ahead", trying to anticipate where a discussion is
leading to, during the dialogue, determining the conclusion in
advance of your required response allows you to relax and
improve information absorption
2) Learn to periodically validate communicated information:
By mentally striving to validate the accuracy and completeness
of information points made by the prospect, especially during
pauses in the dialogue, (which can be achieved with note
taking), you can allow yourself to absorb more information
easier, especially information forthcoming in the continued
dialogue
3) Utilize "Active Listening" techniques:
By periodically, mentally summarizing the major points
communicated by the prospect and voicing, reaffirming your
interpretation of the points made back to the prospect you add
a tremendous amount of clarity to the information exchanged
thus far
4) Strive to understand versus "Judging":
By working to consciously understand what the prospect is saying
versus the natural tendency of judging - approving or
disapproving what is said will allow you to absorb what is
actually said more than any other listening development
technique
5) Use your eyes to "get the rest of the story"
By listening with your eyes, paying attention to the prospect's
body language, their nonverbal facial and body movements or
hand gestures you can see what the whole body is trying to tell
you, not just the mouth!
6) Maintain a mental repertoire of common responses:
By mentally developing and rehearsing how you are going to
strategically respond to common sales prospect purchase
objections, for example, in advance of a sales call, allows you
to listen more effectively. A comprehensive mental inventory of
common responses will also give you more confidence in any
selling situation.
Today's successful salesperson is ultimately an effective
problem solver. Whether it is an existing or potential
customer, the most successful sales people continuously strive
to hone their listening skills to accurately define their
customer's business intentions. If properly trained, and with
constant practice, a salesperson will quickly realize that how
they talk or present their product or service is relatively
unimportant when compared to how and what they listen to, when
guided by well honed listening skills.
Applying the selling skills developed from these listening
exercises can give extraordinary power, not only to the spoken
word, but the words listened to, and may be, in practice,
provide the only margin of victory in any given sales
situation. About the Author:
Mark Smock is President of http://www.business-buyer-directory.com, the
FIRST international business buyer directory of its kind.
Business Buyer Directory provides a non-traditional means for
proactive business buyers to locate businesses for sale
worldwide that meet their exact registered purchase criteria.
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