This page was originally on the Sandler subdomain for trainer Jeff Schneider. Either he has retired or the website has been changed since then (it was an ancient design). So I have used the Wayback Machine to grab a copy of it here. This is Jeff's content and it is good. ~Jason.
Are You Listening To Me?
The selling profession has a bad reputation. Much of it has been well-deserved. Too often, salespeople feel that the key to their success is speaking well: being persuasive, impressive and articulate. How many times have you heard an adult comment about a talkative child that they "should go into sales, because they really have the gift of gab?" I personally shudder whenever I hear something like that. I maintain that the key to success in sales lies in listening, not talking.
Most sales people (most human beings, really) are not very good at listening. If I invented a gadget called a "listenometer" and hooked it up on your head prior to your next sales call, what would it reveal regarding how locked in you are to what your prospect is saying? Is your mind completely focused on what the other person is saying? Or do you find yourself half-way listening while planning what you are going to say next? How do you improve your listening skills? It starts with a commitment to be there in the moment for the person you are meeting with. What that means is that you are so committed to hearing them and understanding them that you put aside your desire to express yourself and be understood. That can come later. This kind of listening requires a good deal of humility, because you must first believe that what the other person is saying is more important than what you have to say. We all know when someone is really listening to us versus when someone is pretending to listen. The difference has to do with intent.
If you are merely trying to make a sale, it will show. But if you are genuinely interested in the person sitting across from you and are committed to their well-being, they will sense that you are really listening to them. All people have a desire to be heard and understood. A lot has been written about active listening skills, so I won't rehash this topic here. But I would like to highlight one technique that David Sandler called "The Dummy Curve." The essence of The Dummy Curve is to ask very simple, seemingly ignorant questions in order to fully understand the other person. This means that if a prospect says something that you do not understand, you must ask her what she means. It can be summed up by the phrase Embrace Your Ignorance. Don't try to pretend that you know more than you really do in order to impress the prospect (in fact, stop trying to impress prospects at all!). Instead, simply ask a Dummy Curve question.
Here are some of my favorites:
- What does that mean?
- Can you explain that to me?
- How does that work?
- Why?
- Huh? (really, try it)
By asking these simple questions, we communicate that we do not understand the prospect as much as we would like to, and invite them to elaborate on the issues that are important to them. Sure, you run the risk of appearing like something other than an expert regarding the specific topic being discussed. But I believe it is better to perhaps appear a bit ignorant than to pretend you understand what is being said and later have to admit that you actually don't. It makes you look foolish, and it destroys whatever bonding and rapport had been established up to that point.
We all need to learn to embrace our ignorance if we really wish to understand our prospects. "But my prospects expect me to be an expert in my field." Not really. They expect you to understand their problems well enough to offer the right solution, and they expect you to have a team of experts behind you to correctly implement the solution. Your job is to ask great questions that cut to the heart of the issue and listen carefully to what they say and how they say it, so that you can be sure that you are proposing the right solution to fix their problem. I'd love to get your feedback. Please respond back to this email and let me know if you agree or disagree with my thinking on this topic. And let me know about any other topics you'd like to see me address in the future. Good Selling! Jeff
