What top salespeople hear that others miss

We unpack why listening to understand, not to respond, is the quiet edge in sales and how it turns hidden doubts into clear next steps. 

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Welcome to the podcast!

Transcript

Listening To Respond Versus Understand

Consultative Selling And Win Win

Signals That Reveal Hidden Objections

Face To Face And Non Verbal Cues

Slow Down And Invite Clarification

Emotional Versus Fact Based Objections

Catch Issues Early In Discovery

Weekly Homework And Key Flags

Closing Thoughts And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello and welcome to another podcast. Now, in this episode, I'm going to talk about something that's one of my favorite subjects. And the reason it's one of my favorite subjects is that I think it's something that's very easy to change. But many, many salespeople I've worked with make this major mistake, and the top salespeople don't. So I'm going to take you through what that is in the next um 20 minutes or so. So please stay with me, and please remember to like and subscribe if you are enjoying these podcasts. So the thing to remember here is that two salespeople can hear the same words and they can walk away with completely different outcomes. And the question that I will put to you as we get started is what are you missing? So this podcast is about listening, and I'm going to talk about why it gives you a competitive advantage. And I think this is really important because it's something that I see some people ignore or undervalue, and yet it can make a huge difference between your ability to heat your numbers, to close deals, to connect with people, um, to build strong relationships, build relationships with clients who keep coming back to you. And one of the reasons they keep coming back to you is that when you do this, you might be the only salesperson that they deal with who does this. And it's a bit of a scary thought, but it's nonetheless, it's very true. So why is it a competitive advantage? Well, basically, most people, when you speak to them, they are listening to respond. So, in other words, they'll be talking to a client, they're talking about whatever it is they're talking about, and you know, presumably their solution. And the client will say something, and they'll do a mentally, they'll do a connection. Okay, great, that's perfect. That's um a real advantage for us. I know our competitors can't do it. Oh, and if we put in these um these particular options, then it's even better, and blah, blah, blah. And what's happened, and I have spoken about this before as well, but I think it's worth repeating, is that of course, while all this dialogue's going on internally, you've completely stopped listening to what the um client is saying. And in what you've missed, could be the absolute game changer for you, the one thing that allows you to absolutely nail this sale, and you've just gone off on a little uh mind wander. So rather than listening to respond, and in fact, the my essay listening to respond, which I didn't really complete that, having got all this stuff in your head about oh, this would be great, and we do this, this, and this, you're then waiting for the client to be quiet so you can tell them, basically, show them how clever you are and how great your product is and how good your company is, and uh what an amazing change it would make for them. But as I say, you've missed the really important stuff, or potentially missed the important stuff. So the thing to do differently, and the thing that makes you stand out is to listen to understand. So, again, if there's been a consistent theme through all of these podcasts, and in fact, the way I approach sales and the course that I offer, which is called consultative selling, it is to do exactly that. It's consultative selling. What does that mean? Well, we consult, we discuss, we listen to what the client is trying to do, and we work closely with them to understand that the understanding is the most important part of all of this. Once we understand what the client is trying to achieve, what their fears are, where the potential problems are, then we're in a position to offer a solution that will win for them, but it wins for us as well. And again, I'm a big believer in the win-win solution because I just think it makes life so much easier for everyone. So if you're the kind of salesperson who is trying to manipulate or trick somebody into buying from you, then I really want you to jump off the podcast right now and never come back. And I actually mean that quite sincerely, as they say. So going a bit deeper with this, what are the advantages of listening? So, and listening to understands. First of all, you get the words, so you you you get a lot of information that you can use, and you're connecting with that information. And often I will write it down. I'll even pause a client because I need to write something down. And I'll just say, look, can we just stop there for one moment? Because I really want to make a note of this because this is important. And again, people generally like that because if you're writing things down, if people if someone starts writing down what you're saying, unless they're a policeman, you you probably feel pretty good about it. So don't be afraid of writing things down. Now, the signals that you get when you start looking for signals rather than words, these can give you a clue that an objection is about to appear. So, one of the signals to look out for is hesitation in the language. If somebody's suddenly pausing, if they particularly if they were quite engaging and then suddenly the the whole thing shifts, and they're now pausing a lot more, they're thinking about their words, they're choosing their words carefully. There's a good chance that there's a doubt there and that this will turn into an objection. The next thing to look for is a shift in energy. So, again, they can be really enthusiastic, it can all be going very well, and then all of a sudden, something changes, and and these are really obvious, actually, these changes in energy, and that's an immediate flag that something has happened and you have a doubt, you have a there's an issue there, and you really need to deal with that straight away if you can. And then the final thing to look out for is conditional statements. So sometimes these can be buying signs, but also they can be a lead-in to an objection. So it's really important that you listen to the statement and you understand what's going on, and we're going to come to that in a moment. So, the kind of things that the average salesperson is going to miss when they're chatting or when they're just talking with the client is first of all any subtle doubts, because you'll get that change in tone, you'll get that change in pace, uh, you might get hesitation, sort of things I've just described. There might be unspoken resistance. And again, this is an energetic thing. And this is another reason why I really encourage people to do face-to-face meetings, so in other words, in person with a client, because when we're in the same room as somebody, we pick up a lot of non-verbal communication, so you get a feeling that you must. I'm sure you've experienced this where you're talking to somebody, it doesn't have to be in a sales situation, and then all of a sudden you feel like something isn't right, something's different. There's just, and you can't put your finger on it necessarily, but things were just felt fine, they felt comfortable, and then all of a sudden they don't. And this is really, really valuable because this is where you're picking up on some emotional change in the buyer, in the person you're speaking with. And it's really important that you recognize those and you act on them because if you don't, and uh last time I was talking about how things can appear um late in the sales cycle and derail the whole process, that's where these kind of things can come home to roost, or you get ghosted, the the client just disappears. So be aware of unspoken resistance. Also look for emotional cues. So, again, a change in emotion, um we connect very easily, and it's very easy to sense when someone is happy and comfortable. Equally, we'll pick up that something's not right. Now you can do this remotely as well, but you are listening, you need to listen to the tone of voice, and any change in tone of voice, that's a giveaway as well. But when you're face to face, you get the whole your whole body's basically a big ear, if you want to think of it that way, and you're picking up a lot of information that goes beyond the words. So essentially, when you are speaking to someone, be conscious of the connection, if you like, between you. Are you is it a nice, comfortable, relaxed conversation? Do you both seem to be on the same wavelength? Is it all going smoothly, or has something just changed? And now you're feeling a doubt, you're feeling something isn't quite right, and you you don't know what just happened. So it's really important to be aware of those non-verbal cues and those changes. So, how do you tune in differently? How can you get better at picking these things up? So, the first thing is to listen for the meaning beyond the words. So, you need to hear the words obviously, but listen for the meaning. What is underneath the words? So there might be doubt, there might be a condition. Just look at what's going on with the words that are being used and any subtle change that might be associated with them. Pause instead of pushing, be really tuned in to your client. If anything, you want to slow things down because you want room there. And what people will tend to do when they're under pressure, when they're feeling pressure to close, if and this is from the salesperson's side, if they are feeling that things are slipping away from them a little bit, they will often speed up, they'll start to apply pressure, they'll talk a lot more, they'll do those kind of things. And essentially, why they do that is it's to try and feel like you're in control again. And the reason they need that is that clearly they feel that they're not in control, or else you wouldn't be doing that. The difference that you have with top salespeople, they recognize that there's an issue, but they don't let it drive their approach other than they know how to respond to it. So it's a response, not a reaction, and that response is to slow things down and to clarify, and that's really important. So invite clarification. The kind of language you're using is curiosity, it's trying to understand, it's um you're there to understand what the client's trying to do, what the problem may be. You're not this is not closing, this is conversation, this is talking through what the fears are. And if you listen to the last uh podcast, there is um an example of a um a question you can use there, it's open-ended, it has a certain degree of emotional connection, and we need that because buyers need to feel safe with us, and often, and I would suggest that the objections that a buyer wants or feels less comfortable raising with you tend to be more emotionally based than fact-based. Uh, the reason is that if it's a fact-based issue, it's not personal, there's nothing personal about it. It's like you know, I don't know what it what it might be, whatever you're selling, but there will be specifications, presumably of some sort. And you can easily talk about specifications because they are what they are, they're they're um aspects of whatever this solution is. But if the objection comes back to a fear, and I've spoken about this in a bit more depth in other podcasts, I'll just touch on it briefly here. But remembering that buyers, this could be a career decision for them, it could or a major stage in their career, for good or bad, particularly if they get it wrong, they there may be some doubts relating to that. Does this expose them? So if it's exposing them in some way to potentially losing their job or losing reputation, that kind of thing. That's an emotional resistance. And you need to have a very good relationship or create a very safe place for that person to open up to you about that kind of issue. So it's really important that you just invite clarification, you talk it over. You are genuinely interested and concerned, and genuinely want to resolve the issue. So now I think this bit's quite obvious, but early awareness will prevent later problems. And I've again I've already said this and referred back to the last podcast, which is exactly dealing with um late problems. And one of the points I made there is that issues that become objections at that late stage have more than likely been there for a while, they've been sitting there underneath, and what's happened is the salesperson has missed them for whatever reason that they've been missed. So where you want to be is basically handling objections before they become objections. Um, and this is conversation, this is where you raise issues that you believe the client may have, or you invite the client to raise issues, but you're doing it at the discovery stage. So this earlier stage in the sales process where you are having a conversation and in the and throughout the sales process from initial inquiry through to close, you will keep revisiting the discovery process, you'll keep going back to that phase periodically, and it's a really good thing to do, particularly if it's a longer sales cycle, because you need to be on top of any changes that have happened. Um, it may be budgets have changed, it might be the requirements different, um, maybe key personnel have changed, but all of these things can have an influence on how likely you are to get the sale. And it is absolutely vital, really, that you stay on top of these so you know what's going on. So, discovery as a check-in, whenever you next catch up with the client, is a really good way to start. Just open the conversation with just to summarize where we are at the moment, we're here, here, and here. Um, can you tell me if there have been any changes and um that that sort of thing? Just clarify. It doesn't have to be a big thing, but it is important to acknowledge it, and then obviously they will say, Yes, they have been, or they haven't been, or whatever it might be. But what you're again listening for at this stage is not so much the words they're using, but what's going on emotionally. What are you feeling when that person responds? Is there hesitation? You know, what's going on there? So use this it's I guess you might call it an active listening skill to qualify the words that they're giving you. Because what you want to be building is momentum, because obviously the whole point here is to get it to a sale. You might be having nice conversations, but they need to be going somewhere. But you don't want to be applying pressure. This is about applying momentum, maintaining momentum, but without applying pressure. So, what I'm gonna suggest that you do is to do a bit of homework. Um, just to summarize, I guess, in one sentence, the difference between the average salesperson and the top salespeople often isn't so much what they say as it's in what they notice because that will drive what they say. So, kind of looping it back, that's where the the loop closes, I guess. So, just as a thing to do, um, over the next week, start listening for these flags that I've given you. So, just to recap, those you're looking or you're listening for um hesitation, which might be leading to an objection. And if it is, just go for it, understand what that is. You're being aware of energy shifts, so the the conversation's going fine, and then all of a sudden it's not flowing as it was, something's changed, and listen to listen out for conditional statements and clarify. So slow things down and clarify the situation. So the important thing here is if you catch these kind of issues early, it actually makes the sale itself much, much easier. It's far more easier to close someone when you're dealing with objections before their objections, their points of conversation, and you can reassure them, keep building that confidence, that trust that they can have in you, and that makes the whole closing process much, much easier. So that is it for um today. I hope that's been useful. Maybe it's given you something to think about. If you feel I've earned it, please give me a like and subscribe, and I will speak to you again on Monday. Bye for now.