Listening habits for higher sales

by Rick Phillips

Someone once said a diplomat is a fellow that lets you do all of the talking while he gets what he wants. Those comments are just as relevant to the professional salesperson as they are to the diplomat.

Like the diplomat, having polished listening skills is critical to the success of a professional salesperson. The professional of the future will listen his or her way into more sales than they ever talked themselves into. 

Listen for more sales? That somehow seems odd. Those who have been in sales for any length of time have been taught  techniques for talking people into more sales. We were taught that we needed to control the sales call, to dominate and take charge of the interview from start to finish.

Here are a few of problems with that approach:
a. While the sales person is talking, he or she is not learning anything about the prospect.
b. The sales person with little or no information about the prospect's real need will seldom be able to recommend the right solution.
c. The sales person doing all of the talking will seldom gain any rapport with or trust from the prospect.
d. The sales person who asks the right questions is directing the flow of the sales conversation.

Understanding the customer’s business is the first step to successfully sell the applications the customer needs. Unfortunately, most sales people will admit that they are better talkers than listeners. The problem is, we seldom recognize how that impacts the prospect. Further, we seldom realize just how poor our listening skills really are.

Here’s a checklist to help you evaluate your own listening habits:
• Do you ever catch yourself looking at your watch while listening?
• Do you ever finish other people’s sentences?
• Do you ever find yourself patiently waiting for your turn to talk?
• Is it hard for you to maintain eye contact with people who are talking to you?
• Do you really give the other person a chance to talk?
• Do you ever interrupt while someone is trying to make a point?
• Do you ever think to your self, “I’ve heard all this before.”
• Do you sometimes anticipate what the other person is going to say?
• Do you find yourself occasionally distracted while the other person is speaking?
• Do you ever find yourself wondering what the other person has just said?
• Do you ever mentally begin structuring your remarks while the other person is talking?
• Could you encourage the other person to continue their remarks more often?

If you have answered yes to more than half of the above questions, then you are about normal, not right but normal. Most of us are guilty of poor listening habits. Most of us are not excellent sales professionals either. Listening is often the one trait which will separate the best from all of the rest.

Why is listening so important?
The customer holds all of the information you will need to know if you are going to sell to him or her, or answer his needs. Understand that you can’t learn anything about the customer while you are talking. If you are to discover how to sell the prospect, you must be mentally open to the his or her comments. 

Listening also helps us gain rapport since listening to someone is the ultimate compliment. Listening says, “I believe you and your comments are important.”  Everyone likes to feel important, and as my old friend Cavett Robert is fond of saying, “If you don’t think your customer is important try doing business without him."

Three listening habits
Develop questions that stimulate listening. You and I must develop a list of open-ended questions that will get the prospect talking and us listening. Open-ended questions are those questions that stimulate conversations beyond one or two word responses like yes or no.  Generally an open-ended question will start with words like what, tell me about, how, why, etc. 

Questions like “What do you like about your present vendor?” or  “Why is that important to you?” will get the prospect giving you valuable information if you are listening.

Further, having a list of questions, even if you never get through a third of the list, will give you a sense of direction and confidence for each sales call.

Encourage the other person to talk. There are a lot of salespeople around who think when the customer isn’t talking, then they should be. Many times however the prospect may pause to think of a particular point, when that thought gets interrupted by a salesperson.

I once met a truly remarkable gentleman, Dr. Kenneth MacFarland. This man had a way of making you feel really important. He was sincerely interested in finding out about you. He asked open ended questions and he listened with empathy. When you responded, he would encourage you to speak more and elaborate on your answers.

We can learn from his listening skills and look for ways to encourage our prospect’s to talk. Try phrases like: Go on, tell me more, or I see, or then what happens. 

These conversation extenders will show the prospect that you are listening and will give them the opportunity to talk about their needs in more depth. The more the prospect speaks about needs, the more you will understand those needs and their value to the prospect and the prospect’s organization. Additionally, like MacFarland, you will build an incredible rapport with people, because like we said earlier, people like people who listen to them.

Give them feedback Concentrate on listening with your mind and body as well as your ears. Be an active listener. Make eye contact and show them with your facial expressions and physical manner that you are listening. 

When you do this, your whole body language will reassure prospects that you are interested in their needs and concerns. The prospect may easily interpret passive listening as indifference. The more feedback they see, the more information they will share with us, better equipping us to find solutions to their situation.

Feedback includes letting the prospect know that you have understood his or her comments. You can do this by asking confirming questions, such as; “To insure that I understand your concerns let me review.” 

When you are able to do this, you will reassure the prospect that you have listened well. Another benefit is that if you have missed the intent or meaning of a comment,  the prospect will correct you immediately, which can save you lots of time and lots of lost sales.

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, “You can learn a lot by just listening.

Rick Phillips is a management, sales and customer service speaker and trainer based in New Orleans. He is president of Phillips Sales and Staff Development (PSSD), a nationally recognized training firm he founded in 1984. Contact Rick at or at .

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