Chapter 6 & 7: Communication & Listening

The group either got lazy in chapter 6 or the fact that most sales training addresses the pieces and parts of Debbie’s 3 Major Components of Communication made everyone less jazzed about choosing an action item. Our conversation covered one of my favorite topics:

conversation vs. interrogation

and we all quoted pg 97s Guidepost 18 “Strive to communicate what you have to offer so clearly that customers who aren’t a fit will recognize it.”

Now on to chapter 7 – perhaps the most important chapter to have action items for! Listening

On page 104 you see “Learning to listen means learning the patience to be quiet”… patience & being quiet – neither are things salespeople are known for.

Debbie’s definitions of the 4 types of listeners was eye opening:

• scavengers; looking for scraps of information, to help decide their next thing to say
• attention-challenged; this actually reminded me of a shirt that we got for our friend Steve which says ‘They say I have A.D.D. they just don’t understand… Oh look, a chicken!’
• literal; listen and acknowledge exactly what is said, not what is between the lines
• empathetic; genuinely care, leave ample silence to allow clients to complete their thoughts

Here are the things we decided to do for the next two weeks to improve our listening skills:

1. have a blank outlook email open to take my notes with ONE conversation per (even in my notebook)
2. remind myself the people I’m talking with don’t necessarily know ANYTHING and find a way to ask questions to gather more info
3. minimize outlook and NOT look at other emails while on the phone
4. STOP interrupting… and try using the mute button to do it for the whole day.
5. learn when to stop talking and let THEM talk

Lynn’s side note: mine is #3 and the first day I kept catching myself clicking and wanting to multi-task. When I left for the day I felt awesome and looking back it was because of the quality conversations I had all day long. Coincidence? I think not!

What are you willing to do to improve your listening?  Scroll down, register, log in, and let us know.