184: Covid-19 Makes Sale's Listening Skills More Critical

<p>Typically we speak at 150-200 words per minute but we can listen at up to 600 words.  We have excess capacity and sometimes our concentration strays and we stop really listening to others.  We might be thinking instead about what we want to say or what point we need to bring up.  Have you noticed this about yourself?  We miss a lot of valuable information when we are not fully listening to others.  We have to hear with our eyes, watching their body language and we have to listen for the tone with which they deliver the words.  Sounds reasonable, except today, we are trying to do all of this via a small screen with bad audio.  Even worse, the person we are talking to is trapped in a little tiny box dangling in the screen corner.</p> <p> </p> <p>There are three levels of listening.  Which one are you demonstrating, when you are on-line</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Distracted</strong></p> <p>The on-line audio quality isn’t all that great yet, which makes it even harder to hear what is going on.  We are also possibly thinking so much about something on our side, we are not really paying close enough attention to the client.  We find we may have missed some key details and we may be ignoring the nuance of what we are being told. We cannot concentrate well at home, because the kids are running riot.  We could also be thinking about the brilliant thing we are going to say next.  The upshot is, in reality, we are just pretending to be listening.  On-line is even more deadly too. While the other person is speaking, we may be multi-tasking in the background, like a demon on speed, making the whole conversation clarity even more fraught.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Selective</strong></p> <p>This is very typical for salespeople most of the time, on-line or otherwise.  We are listening for words or phrases that indicate we can advance the sale.  We tend to tune everything else out and just listen for what we want to hear.  The issue with this is that clients may have subtle concerns which we need to address, but we are not even awa