“The Critical Sales Skill
Professional Sales Training On How To Develop Your “Listening” Selling Skill
By Nick Moreno, Sales Training Consultant
Salespeople must understand that hearing and listening are two very different things. You may hear a sales prospect talking, but that doesn’t mean you were actually listening to every word they were saying. To succeed in a sales career, you must develop your listening as a selling skill. Although listening is a critical selling skill, have you ever had professional sales training on this subject? Well, let’s try to bridge that sales training gap and get focused on this selling skill.
Listening Is A Selling Skill
Let’s start by clearing the air on the difference between hearing something and listening to something. Hearing is about sounds, but listening is about understanding. You don’t have to force yourself to hear something, but that’s exactly what you must do when you are listening. When you are listening, you are focusing all your attention on what is being communicated to you. Sales Superstars have highly developed this selling skill and that is one more reason they enjoy great sales success.
A Professional Selling Skill
Walk down any city street and you’ll hear sounds all around you. You can’t control how loud, annoying or pleasant they may be. You can’t just turn your hearing off or turn it on because hearing is always active. But, here is the problem. When someone talks to you, you may hear their voice, but you may not be listening to what they are actually saying and communicating. You can see how not having this selling skill could be a disaster on a sales call. The development of listening as a sales skill should be incorporated in professional sales training because it it is a selling skill that could be the difference between failure and sales success.
Although hearing is always on and active, the same cannot be said about listening. As it relates to a professional selling skill, you should always make a deliberate effort to turn on your listening abilities and keep them active when you are on a sales appointment. Start by saying to yourself… “I want to listen”. Your sales prospect is communicating a great deal of information and you can’t afford to miss any of it. When you turn on your listening selling skill and focus on what’s being communicated during a sales appointment, you start using a powerful selling skill that far too many salespeople failed to master.
A Powerful Selling Skill
Every school child is exposed to a ton of reading comprehension exams. Just because you read something doesn’t mean you got your arms around the meaning. When we read something, our minds may “hear” the words but our minds may not always be “listening” to the words. We were all exposed to a lot of comprehension and even hearing tests, but no one seems to be focused on “listening” as a skill that must be developed. I strongly feel we need “Listening Comprehension” testing in our schools.
During my years of working with salespeople and conducting sales training classes, I’ve learned that the salespeople who rise to the top of their profession have a highly developed listening selling skills. Listening is a selling skill that all salespeople must develop if they expect to earn those big commission checks.
My life’s passion is to understand why 20% of all salespeople earn 80% of all the commissions. I want to know what separates the Sales Superstars from the reps that have to live on the remaining 20% of all the commissions. The Superstars don’t work harder; in fact they make sales look easy.
My sales skill training programs concentrate on all I’ve learned about the top sales professionals and one thing I’ve uncovered about them is their superior ability to listen. In fact, the Sales Superstars take listening to a new level as a selling skill. They even “listen” with their eyes! They want to “listen” to their sales prospect’s body language and any other clue that may come their way. They absorb all this information and use this selling skill to effectively communicate with their prospects.
How Salespeople Can Improve Their Listening Selling Skill
Let’s put all this information to work and discover ways to improve our listening sales skill. Let’s begin with the fact that people think faster than they listen. So, here is a sales tip I want you to use on your next sales appointment. Stop thinking about what your prospect is going to say next. Instead, focus on what your prospect is saying at the moment. When you start thinking ahead, your mind is wondering and when that happens you substitute hearing for listening. The same is true when you start thinking too far ahead about what you are going to say next. Stay in the moment and keep your mind focused on listening. Remember this selling skill.
There are other things you can use to improve your listening sales skill. During you next sales call, I want you to find moments during the conversation that allow you to summarize what your prospect just told you. Obviously, you can’t do this if you were not listening. Not only will this force you to listen but it will also insure there are no misunderstandings between what you thought you heard and the message your prospect was actually attempting to communicate. Use “listening” as a selling skill.
An Amazing Selling Skill
Yes, listening is a powerful selling skill and one you must develop to enjoy great sales success. My hope is that this article made you aware of this critical sales skill and that you’ll focus on improving your listening selling skill. Once you do, you’ll be on your way to becoming… the next Sales Superstar.
Discover additional free sales skills, including free sales training videos, at our sales skill training site.
Nick Moreno, Sales Trainer
About the Author
Nick Moreno, founder of The National Sales Center, is a well-established sales training consultant with more than 30 years of experience providing excitement, empowerment and benefit to those he trains. Offering a competitive sales training advantage through education and cutting edge programs, his system, The Progressive Sales Process, is known for generating ‘Sales Superstars’ who consistently reach much higher sales commissions. Mr. Moreno can be reached by visiting his web site at www.nationalsalescenter.com
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