Listening is a crucial skill for #salesprofessionals! But what does it really mean to listen? 🤔
Listening is NOT just hearing what someone says. It is also understanding and responding to their messages, both verbal and non-verbal. Paying attention to the speaker and their tone, gestures, and facial expressions.
Listening is NOT solutioning. Withhold your judgement and stay open. Do not try to develop your response/answers. Instead, ask questions to clarify what you heard. Reflect on what you heard and restate it back to the speaker. Listening is a skill that can be improved with practice and feedback.
How to Listen Like a Pro? A Deep Listening Exercise
Deep listening involves going beyond the surface of what is said, what is not said, and what lies behind it. As sales leaders, we want our sellers to capture as much information as possible (especially in discovery meetings). After all, we should spend our sales efforts on the right opportunities. It is important to correctly qualify the real opportunities. Here is an exercise for your team to practice deep listening:
Pick up a recording of one of the discovery meetings (15 minutes max) with one of your prospects.
Before you start playing the recording, assign each person a listening responsibility:
One will collect all the facts described by the prospect.
One will collect all the feelings expressed by the prospect.
One will collect the values, what is important for the prospect.
One will try to identify what was not said by the prospect.
One will monitor the questions that were not asked by the seller.
Now, play the recording (maybe at a slower speed) and make sure that each person is collecting the information related to their responsibility.
Debrief each person about their list.
Close this exercise by asking them if they learned new information about the prospect. Would they still be qualified as an opportunity?
This exercise will create awareness of the value of deep listening. You may want to repeat it again after a few weeks to ensure that they keep using the skill of deep listening. Try it and share your experience with me.
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