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Listening: The Skill that Connects the Dots

You've heard how important it is to build trust with your clients and prospects. You already know that to succeed as a consultative salesperson, you must focus on the needs of the customer first. You also understand that if you want to develop a deep understanding of your customer's needs, questioning is a critical skill: both on the content side, “What are the questions my competition isn't asking?” and on the process side, “How do I ask sensitive or tough questions without damaging this relationship?”

Author: Kate Reilly

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DIFFERENT WAYS TO LISTEN

The sad truth about the skill of listening is that, regardless of how important it is acknowledged to be, it is rarely taught. Granted, certain professions do teach how to listen. A litigator learns to listen to a witness for the opposing side to spot holes in his story. Improv actors learn how to be in the moment so they can listen and then create responses that make sense to the audience. A therapist learns to listen to how a patient describes things, in addition to what he is describing, to help him understand and address his issues.

But for most of us, including salespeople, it is simply assumed that we know how to listen-and, that we know what we should be listening for.

At CRC, we do a listening exercise in our sales training courses where we ask people to listen for needs, something most consultative salespeople claim they are already pretty good at. Nine out of 10 people will respond to this exercise with solutions, even when they believe they were listening for needs. We do this exercise to show how hard-wired most of us in sales are to listen for solutions or ideas, and not for the customer's needs. The sales profession has trained us all to be really good at quickly channeling what we hear into a chance to talk about our solutions.

DOES THIS MEAN YOU SHOULD BE YOUR CUSTOMER'S THERAPIST?

No, of course not. We believe you can provide a lot of value by listening closely to your clients and reflecting what you hear-not by leaping to solutions or merely regurgitating their problems, but instead, by using language that begins movement toward the future, where that need can be satisfied. We call this listening for needs.

This involves listening with both ears to what customers say. One ear really needs to understand what they're saying-the pain, the problems, the frustration and, in some cases, the satisfaction. And the other ear needs to tune into how the customer would like it to be, what the desired state might look like, how things could be better. Then, when it's your turn to talk, show that you have been listening for his or her needs by reflecting back the way it could be: a picture of the future. We call this skill “reframing.”

HOW ABOUT AN EXAMPLE OF REFRAMING?

The client, a director of training for a large and growing sales force, was resisting investing in training because he thought it was putting the cart before the horse. He thought step one would be to develop a clearer view of the competencies required to be a successful salesperson in that company.

What he said was: “We really need to address these competency issues. We have to codify them. I can't believe we've done this well and gotten this far without having done this. The problem for me in this department is that I feel like the Lone Ranger sometimes. I just can't get people to see how important this is. I know it's hard work. But without it, we're not going forward. It makes me nuts that people don't see this. Do you have experience with this sort of stubbornness and limited vision?”

So, what would you have said next? Here are three possibilities.

If you had been focused on listening for solutions, you might have responded: “We have a strategic partnership with a firm that has developed an excellent performance management system that begins by identifying the core competencies for the key jobs within the organization. Blah, blah, blah, blah…”

Had you done this you would have been committing several selling sins in one move. First, you would have immediately begun pitching a solution in the absence of getting agreement on a need. Second, you would have risked having him tune you out as you started to explain the features of your solution. Third, you would have missed some terrific opportunities to ask more questions and draw him out on some key phrases he used. And all of this would have added up to a big swing and a miss on the opportunity to build more trust with this client.

If you had been focused on listening for understanding, you might have responded: “Yeah, I hear you. Not having a clear target to aim at when you invest money in training can be a costly mistake on two fronts. Not only do you risk not teaching the right skill set, but even if it were the right training, you risk teaching it at either a too basic or too advanced level. And, we know that can really turn off an audience.”

So, what's so wrong with this response? Haven't you avoided jumping too fast to a solution? Well, yes. And, there's nothing really wrong with this response, especially because it demonstrates understanding. But, fundamentally, you haven't yet established a mutual understanding of need. You don't know what he wants to do about his situation. In other words, we're still stuck in the current state. There's no vision of the desired state you want to be able to bring him to and you don't yet know how motivated he is to want to get there. You can do much better.

If you had been focused on listening for needs, you might have responded: “So, if I'm hearing you, you're looking for ways to get some real clarity around what the core competencies are for being a successful salesperson here at ABC Corp. You'd also like to figure out how to rally your colleagues around your passion about this issue so that you can tackle it as a team. And, although you didn't exactly say this (correct me if I'm off base here), you feel so strongly about this because you want to be able to capture what your salespeople have been doing that's been so successful to date. You want to consciously replicate this success moving forward. Am I on track with this?”

Wow! A home run. Not only have you demonstrated that you understand his issue, but you've painted a picture of the desired state (a positive reflection on you as a consultant). And if he agrees with these need statements, you have set yourself up for a discussion of solutions knowing that he's going to be very interested in hearing them. In fact, when you reframe in such an engaging and compelling way, often the client responds with, “Yes, that's it exactly. Can you help?”

Because you focused on understanding his needs without jumping too quickly to solutions, you've positively impacted the two key elements of trust building over which you have the most control: your credibility and your empathy!

A FINAL WORD

I often cringe when I hear someone describe what we teach as “soft skills.” I always hear that as demeaning and that these skills are regarded as non-essential. Recently, I was having lunch with a good friend and client who told me how he responded when in the presence of someone who called listening a soft skill. His response:
“You've gotta be kidding me! Listening? A soft skill? Do you know how hard it is to really listen well? In my humble opinion, it's a full contact, no pads sport!” I couldn't have said it better.

About Author

Kathleen S. Reilly
President, Consultative Resources Corporation (CRC)
In 1981, Kate founded Consultative Resources Corporation to help organizations engaged in business-to-business sales distinguish themselves from their competition through their sales process. CRC’s programs include consultative selling skills, coaching for high performance, team selling, consultative relationship skills, and consultative negotiations. In addition to her work as a trainer, Kate is also a sought-after meeting facilitator who has helped countless groups (from small groups of 6-8 people to large teams of 100 or more) have more effective and more efficient meetings.

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Listening: The Skill that Connects the Dots