On a recent sales cold call, the prospective customer began describing issues with his existing supplier. “They continue to make errors on invoices and they price the same product with three different prices, sometimes in the same month.” Without hesitation, our rep aggressively began describing our pricing system: I discreetly kicked him under the table, and with pleading eyes tried to get him to stop… and just listen!

How many times have you launched verbally into the solution mode when you really had not actively listened and completely understood the customer’s real issue(s)?

In his chapter, Seeking to Understand, from his book, Sales Mastery, Garry Duncan introduces two concepts for discovering customer’s buying motives: ask clarifying questions, and use active listening. While clarifying questions are used to identify the meaning behind a prospect’s comments, active listening skills promote trust, rapport, understanding, and aid in the clarification of perceived issues and suggested solutions. Let’s review the four techniques for active listening— 1) Acknowledge: “I hear you; I understand; tell me more”, 2) Parroting: Repeat back the exact words you heard, 3) Paraphrasing: “So, what I hear you saying is …”, and 4) Feeling Feedback: “So, how did that make you feel?”

A critical problem of sales people is NOT LISTENING. We were drawn into sales careers because we like people and enjoy personal contact. We like to talk and build new relationships, but consistently may find it hard to listen “actively.” Unfortunately, many resulting relationships can be superficial if we don’t learn to invest 80 percent of our communication energy into understanding the prospect’s concerns. Mastering active listening skills requires the reception of complete information, enables you to qualify the situation, determine what the problem is, how the problem was created, why it is continuing, and what a successful solution should look like.

Through “active” listening, our rep learned pricing issues were only ONE symptom of a much deeper problem: the competitor’s sales person had lost contact with his customer; subsequently the customer had also lost confidence in the rep’s integrity.

Admiral Hyman G. Rickover made nuclear power a reality. Rickover’s incredible ability to accomplish projects resulted in wide public acclaim and personal honors including presidential citations, honorary doctorate degrees, and congressional gold medals. Theodore Rockwell, author of The Rickover Effect, quotes Rickover, “To practice a profession, one must have acquired mastery of an academic discipline as well as a technique for applying this special knowledge to the problems of everyday life. A profession is therefore intellectual in content, (but) practical in application.”

Selling is a profession that requires the mastery of academic discipline. “Active” listening is a technique that when properly applied, solves problems in our everyday sales lives. How effective are your “Active” Listening skills?