Sales or Service Success: Listening is Key

I spend a lot of time with inside sales and customer service personnel helping them improve their interpersonal skills in areas such as questioning techniques, reaching decision makers, dealing with difficult people, closing sales and so on. The key to all of it, however, is the ability to listen well.

Studies have shown that we spend about 9% of our time writing, 13% of our time reading, 23% of our time speaking and 55% of our time listening. What's staggering about that is not only do we spend most of our time listening but that we spend double the time listening as we do speaking.


Here are some things to keep in mind:
You cannot not communicate. Even when you are not verbally saying anything, you transmit messages through your non-verbal's. How you dress, your body language, we count on so many visuals to communicate.

Up to 80% of our communication skills are non-verbal. So, when you speak to someone on the telephone, in effect, you're only using about 20% of your skills.


In my work in inside sales and customer service training, I've used the phrase "Communicating Blindfolded". It's a good analogy. Think of phone work as being given a blindfold. You can hear - but you can't see. You don't have a choice, you must listen.

I consider listening to be one of the three legs of the communication stool we sit on when we communicate over the telephone. The other two are words and voice. When I began in inside sales, I only considered these last two - but the more time I spent in these activities the more I came to realize that I can never truly be effective - never really reach my potential - unless I acknowledge the need for, improved and used my listening skills.


One of the greatest obstacles to good listening, particularly over the phone is that meanings cannot be transferred from one mind to another - only words can be transferred. The challenge here is that you, as the receiver of the message, attach your own meaning to the words I sent you. This is why I'm a huge fan of using clarifying questions when I speak with someone. Just because I attach a particular meaning to certain words or phrases, doesn't mean that someone else does. Regardless of the stage I'm in the sales or service process, I need to make sure that I understand what you mean and that you understand what I mean. 

I do this by focusing only on the task at hand: listening.

Listening is affected by what's called "selective attention". This is almost as a survival technique because I can't' possibly listen to and process every sound I hear. have to use selective attention in order to listen actively - and that means I have to stay in the moment. I can't let my attention wander. If I'm on the telephone, I don't yield to the temptation of reading email, trolling the news sites online or reading that report on my desk, all while "listening" to you. Can't be done.

Remember my mantra: Multi-tasking is the enemy of good listening. 

Listen well and all will be well.