Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: Just Listen

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For  the written transcript, keep reading...Every time I write a column about listening, I feel as if I've just written a similar column recently.  Nevertheless, it's one of my most requested topics. Sales managers are always asking me to say more about the art of listening. They ask me if I know of any courses on the subject. I guess our world is filled with salespeople who do a whole lot of talking and not enough listening--at least that’s what their managers think.

Here's one of the most common complaints I hear: "My salespeople are so busy trying to tell me what works and what doesn’t work for them that they refuse to listen to what I'm trying to tell them."

Here's what I often hear from customers: “Many times, when I'm trying to tell salespeople what I want or what my company needs, they're so busy telling me what their company can do I can’t get a word in edgewise. After a while I just shut up and let them finish...resigning myself to the fact I won’t be dealing with his company.”

A customer once told me about the time a salesperson talked himself out of an order: “He had it--he had convinced me his company was the best option for me. I was sold. But then he just kept talking and talking and he finally let it slip that his company was in the process of being sold and that ‘he was sure that, regardless of what happened, he should be able to fill my order.’ I could tell that the minute those words came out of his mouth, and he saw my face, he knew he had blown it. I immediately set about getting him out of my office without giving him the order that day. I made up something about there being a few more 'Ts' to cross and that I would get back to him in a day or so. Of course, no matter how often he called, he never got the order. The last thing I was going to do is give an order to a company in transition.”

At one time or another, we've all suffered from the” talking too much and listening too little” syndrome. I have a plan to help all of us become better listeners. I got this, interestingly enough, by listening to my pastor’s sermon last Sunday. Her sermon was about listening, and so I perked up…I was all ears.

Here then, courtesy of Pastor Arlene Tully, are a few tips for better listening:

1. Tune in: Stop everything else you're doing, clear your mind, get comfortable, and listen
2. Shut up: There's a reason we have only one mouth, but two ears--so we can listen better. Focus on what the person is saying instead of focusing on what you are going to say when that person stops talking. Instead, be quiet and listen to what the person is saying. When the person is finished talking, take a moment to process what they just said and formulate your response.
3. Look out: Be empathetic to the person talking, walk in their shoes, and see things from their perspective to get a better understanding of not only what they are saying, but why they are saying it.
4. Calm down: Take a deep breath and concentrate on what the person is saying. Don’t think about what you have to do tomorrow, or that your lawn needs mowing, or that you’re late, or that your stomach is growling and you’re hungry and you’d wish this person would shut up already so that you could give him your spiel and get something to eat. Calm down, get comfortable, and just listen.
5. See past: See past the words; understand what the person is trying to get across with her words. Watch her eyes and her body movements--these can tell you a great deal about the words she's saying.
6. Check back: Let the person know you understanding what he is saying--nod to confirm a point. When it's your turn to talk, and only when it is your turn, repeat back the cogent points in your own words to show that person that you did In fact listen and understand what they were telling you.

Once the person has finished talking, you've processed the information, and formulated your response, guess what? The person will listen to you carefully. Funny how that works. If you set the tone for good listening, the person you're talking with will do the same. That’s called communicating. It’s only common sense.