Probably one of the easiest ways to tell successful sales people apart from the failures is to pay attention to how well they listen to prospects.

Chances are good that people who do most of the talking are also people who don’t make money in sales. 

You just HAVE to let prospects do most of the talking.  Stereotypical hard sell behaviour is a surefire fire way to lose a sale. The two key objectives that must be on your mind the entire time you’re talking to a prospect are:

1. Understanding the prospect’s situation and concerns;

2. Focussing on helping the prospect improve their situation (with your offerings)

The reality of New Economy Selling is that we are more “buyer facilitators” who need to think about helping as much as we do selling. 

Because good listening doesn’t mean as much paying attention to the words that come out of your prospects mouth, as it does HOW they come out of their mouth.  Most communication is non-verbal in fact.  Be aware of those non verbal cues. 

One of the worst things I hear sales reps do over and over is what I call “stepping on the prospect” during conversation.  This is where the prospect is trying to complete a thought or sentence and the sales person immediately starts talking.  This is a quick way to get out of alignment with a prospect. 

Let people finish their thoughts, because most folks hate having someone else finish a sentence for them.

When you DO talk, do not drone on and on.  Share one or two ideas and then ASK FOR CLARIFICATION.  Say, “Did I explain that clearly?”

A great way to improve your listening skills is to take notes while the prospect is talking.  Some people have argued with me that it’s impossible to take notes and listen at the same time.  I disagree - the two actually reinforce each other.  This doesn’t mean that you’re writing ALL the time the prospect is talking, but you should be writing something down at least 20% of the time.

Lastly, it is important to clearly and succinctly summarize the KEY points …the RELEVANT points of the conversation.  Once you’ve done these things, then you’ll be in a better situation with the prospect to introduce your products and services…NOT BEFORE.

In my book New Economy Selling, I have provided a proven conversation flow for achieving the highest possible level of conversation success.

~Brooks