Why Active Listening Makes You Sell More

No matter what you sell, active listening is a crucial part of the sales process. However, active listening is usually referenced as some kind of vaguely important skill without much explanation. Well, today I’ve got a simple 3-step formula for you on how to use active listening skills to boost your sales in 2023.

Active listening skills are most valuable in sales when you listen for what is most important to your prospect.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles…

The number one entry way into a sale is by uncovering the person’s values (what is most deeply important to them).

Salespeople make a common mistake when they think that someone saying something like “I want to earn more money” is uncovering a value of “money” and it’s really not. It’s rather surface level, it’s not deeply into the values. 

That is why active listening is so essential to boosting your sales…

And you MUST have your clients’ deepest values because that is what you will leverage to make the sale.

Be Relaxed And Sincere When Talking About Values

But anyway… back to the example of “money” as a value.

However, Identifying that someone desires money is a start, and we can easily take it from there and encourage them to give us more information that we can leverage in our sales techniques. The key is to be able to do it completely in a sincere way. 

If for any reason you’re coming off as if you are needy, or if you’re coming off as insincere or manipulative or just to sell them something in a sales pitch, as if asking them this question is simply a step in your presentation … you are doomed to fail. 

You Need To Listen, Relax And Simply Tune Your Ears 

And here are the biggest things you can do when it comes to developing the fundamental skills for active listening in order to hear values: be relaxed when talking about them and assume it’s normal.

How many times has a doctor heard someone say “Well, you know, doctor, I hurt right here in this kind of embarrassing spot. I have a problem.” The doctor is completely non-affected by that. “Oh yeah, okay, great. Show me. Let me see.” 

So successful persuaders simply listen for the values. Be relaxed, listen to them. People drop them all the time in conversation. You simply need to tune your ears to hear them. And another way to think of your values is as motivators. Start tuning your ears to pay great attention to what motivates people. Why are they contacting you? 

What Is It That Is Motivating Your Client To Contact You Now? 

If you are contacting them, you need to get especially good at hearing if there’s any reason to continue the conversation. What issue are you dealing with? A problem? An opportunity? 

What’s the deeper, underlying motivation for them? And this is going to inform the questions we’re going to ask. 

The Conversation Is Not About You And What You Want: It’s About Them

So why have we trained ourselves not to hear values? I think this is easily understood by simply saying we are too into thinking about what we want and what we need and where we are headed. 

Think about this for a minute: if I’m doing the presentation and I’m all about, what do I want? – how am I going to get you to buy from me? What do I need to say to you to get you to buy from me? 

What does my presentation say to say next? Blah blah, regurgitate, regurgitate … where instead, I need to understand about you.

What do you want?

The Mistake That Everybody Makes

We want to have the client become involved with us. We want to make the sale. We want to bring in more business for our company, so we look more valuable. But our focus is on us and not the client; that’s the mistake that everybody makes. 

That’s the mistake every salesperson, every advisor, every real estate agent, every coach makes. 

You know how sometimes people do this “Hey, I’ll do a free talk to begin with” – and that’s a pretty stupid thing – but let’s say that’s working for you. The goal there is – and everybody knows it – you’re going to try to sell them. That’s the goal. 

You think they’re going to be come and be making the sign of the Cross in front of themselves: “Get away from me!”

Of course they are, it makes sense that they’re going to try to resist; it’s in their own best interest to resist. They’re ready to object from the minute you begin. This is the major reason why memorized presentations don’t work. You can’t be reciting something from memory while playing close attention to the client. 

The Thing That Separates Real Persuaders From Wannabes 

What this means, again, is you must become professional; no more scripts; no more memorized presentations. And this separates real persuaders from wannabes. 

You absolutely can help yourself by structuring where you’re going, and some strategies to get you there. You can practice this – and I suggest you do – but it cannot be a script to follow. If it is, you’re reducing yourself to a mere commoditized salesperson, with little, if any, value. 

What Do Values Sound Like? 

So what do values sound like? They sound like something of deep importance to the individual you’re talking with; deep importance. 

Things like these are what values sound like: 

• I want to be a good provider … 
• I want to be able to get my children a real good education … 
• I want to be a good father … or mother … or husband … or wife … 

• I don’t want to be alone … 
• I want to advance my company so we don’t fail … 
• … so I can have the success that I know I can … 
• I want to be a respected leader … 
• … to get the best advice possible, to be sure that I advance, as I see others do around me … 

When you get to a person’s higher value, you’ll hear the tone change in their voice as they tell you. You need to learn to hear this: what happens when we change our voice tone. This is creating a moment. 

Tune Your Ears For The Tone Shift 

So when your clients tell you their values, their tone will often shift. Listen for it, tune your ears. You’ll never hear someone say, “Well you know, I want to make some money, so I can be a better father … I want my wife to think I’m a good provider … mm-hmm … so what you got?” 

You’re never going to hear it like that. It will sound like this: “I want to make some money because my son needs toys, and I want to be the dad who gets him those toys.” You’ll hear his voice change. Listen for that! That should alert you as great persuaders … *** incoming … incoming … this is important! *** … I need to pay attention here. 

A Simple Formula To Start With 

Let’s get right to the bottom line, when you first start with this you can use this simple formula.

You could say, “What’s important about X?” And they’re going to tell you. 

And anything they say, you respond with, “Okay, great. And what’s important about …?” and you put in what they just answered. And they’re going to tell you. 

And you say, “So ultimately, what will that do for you?” That’s it. Three simple questions. That’s it. 

When you begin, you may have to do it a bit more bluntly than you’ll do it when you go further. 

Don’t Pound People Down A Rabbit Hole Or You’ll Get Contrived Answers 

Let me give you a metaphor. I could pound you down a rabbit hole – and by that I mean, I can pick what I want you to tell me about: “What’s important about learning persuasion?” 

And now you have to answer a question which may not exactly be important to you. What’s important? But if I force you down the rabbit hole, now maybe I’m going to get contrived answers. 

Let me give you a typical question that one of my students used to have their people ask – one of my students teaching people how to do this. He was an advisor, and the question was

Do you see the manipulation there? I mean, that can be kind of a funny way to do things. But really, when you get right down to it, it’s just simply manipulative. You’re pounding them down a rabbit hole, and maybe they don’t really have that answer. 

Put In The Practice By Asking The Questions

And I’m going to recommend that if you haven’t done this before that you work with about twenty people and you ask them for practice; any twenty people at all, not clients, this is just for practice so you can learn to hear it. 

Start with the obvious. “What’s important about …?” and then name something. And then whatever they say, “What’s important about that?” and they’re going to tell you. And you say, “So ultimately, what will that do for you?” 

That’s where I want you to begin. And as you’re talking to your friends and to your family and somebody says something that they really want, say, “Oh, that’s really good…” 

Don’t be like a jackhammer, pounding at them, but “That’s really good. I like that. I’m curious, for you what’s important about that? What does that mean?” And they tell you, and you say, “Wow, that’s great. Ultimately, what’ll that do for you?” And they tell you. And you don’t pound away at them once you get that; you remember it. 

Simply Ask The Person What Brought Them To See You

This is really the big key on how to begin. As you begin talking with the individual, you’ll have a chance to ask them what brought them to see you? Right there. What prompted them to call? Why now? Wonderful, wonderful questions. 

If you’re making an outgoing call or visit, the odds are they’ll have contacted you to ask for information, so again you can ask them why did they reach out? Why now? 

Whatever they say is where you begin your elicitation. But don’t jump on it, just progress normally. 

Following these simple guidelines, listening to what people say and learning to hear that tone shift, these thing will give you a power few persuaders can dream of. 

What you read in this article is the exact formula that will allow you to make more sales in 2023. You now have the ingredients for massive success in actively listening for what is most important to your clients. Listen and leverage away!

Subscribe for More

Share this Article with Others