On sales training courses all over the world we are told that listening is the most important yet most misunderstood communication skill. My father once told me how a wise old owl sat on an old oak tree; the more he saw the less he spoke and the less he spoke the more he heard so why cant we be like that wise old bird? I never understood what he meant until I started working in sales.
In sales training we learn to communicate with one another to persuade others, inform others or to try to change others opinions. In our complex society if we do not learn how to listen effectively we will have some major difficulties in our professional and personal developments and our relationships. One common misunderstanding that I find many people have on sales training courses is simply that they do not realise that there is a major difference in hearing and listening. It’s a case of talk to the hand because the ears are not listening.
I can recall countless times through college when the lecturer said this will be on the test and starts talking but it quite frankly is going in one ear and out the other. Think about it why would you as a father, friend, grandmother, sister, uncle or even salesperson not want to improve your listening skills?
On sales training courses, I can tell you many reasons that you would want to improve your listening skills, these can include the following;
- Improve Relationships. Simple
- Improve work abilities. Wouldn’t you love to give your self an extra push in the right direction of the infamous promotion?
- Better Assess Skills. Listening can help you assess the needs wants and desires of your prospect.
- Focused. You will be viewed as focused by your prospects, clients and boss as you are the one that listens to everything and clearly understands it.
- Negotiator. You will listen to clients objections properly and discover ways to overcome them by using empathy.
- Get more. You will get more from meetings and sales training courses.
- Gather Information. You will be able to gather the correct information needed from the people that have it in order to take the next step towards closing the sale
Concentration is totally exhausting and is one of the reasons why we tune out of the conversation or meeting. Another reason for not listening found through our sales training courses is that listening is passive yet we as a society are an action based culture, this is why on a sales training course role play and group interaction is necessary to keep listening and concentration levels elevated and alert.
One final factor to improve your listening skills is to start caring more. You want the best out of yourself so that you can then give your best to your prospects and as we often say on sales training courses no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
