Just Listen! A Powerful Sales Competency

by Dave Kahle

I recently came across some research that confirmed what many of us in the profession of educating sales people have known for years: That purchasers would be “much more likely” to buy from a sales person if that sales person would just “listen” to the customer. The survey found that some of the worst offenders were experienced sales people.

     Listening is one of the four fundamental competencies of a professional sales person, and yet, the profession is, in general, so poor at it that most customers remark on our inability to do it well.

Wow!  If there is anyone I wouldn’t want thinking I was a poor listener, my customers would be towards the top of the list.

Why is listening such a powerful sales competency?

Why is listening such a powerful sales competency? In my book Question Your Way to Sales Success, I describe a number of reasons.  Here are a few.

What’s the single best thing you can do to expand your B2B sales?

Invest your selling time where it will get the best results.

And that means that you methodically and systematically rank your accounts by their potential and then adjust your investment of selling time.

In over 30 years of working with over 500 sales organizations, I’ve developed a system to do that and taught it to hundreds of sales teams. 

Join me on October 6^th, at 12:30 Eastern, for a one-hour webinar, and I’ll teach it to you as well.

It will be the best $47 you have ever spent.

First, it is our primary way of digging beneath the surface of a customer’s needs and uncovering deeper and more powerful needs and motivations.  That makes it a primary tool – of which the skillful use separates the master sales people from the mediocre.  For example, it doesn’t take any skill whatsoever to pick up an RFQ, a set of blueprints, or to write down a list of what the customer says he needs.  You don’t have to be a master listener to do that.  But to dig deeper and uncover deeper issues, that takes the ability to listen.

     Here’s an example.  In a routine sales call with a regular customer, the customer says, “We’re thinking of going to X product.  What’s your price?”

     Lots of sales people would look up the price and provide it.  There.  Job done.

     The master would hear the words “Thinking of going…” and dig a little deeper.  “What makes you interested in that?” he says.

     The customer replies: “Well, we’re looking for a solution for a problem with our widget production line, and one of the key operators mentioned it as a possibility.”

     “I see.  What sort of problem are you having in that production line?”

     “An abnormally high reject rate.”

     “I may have some other solutions.  Can I talk to your production manager?”

     I don’t have to take this scenario much further to make the point.  A visit with the production supervisor could very  ... CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE