Listen to be understood

3 minutes read

It looks like there is something wrong with the title, but no, there is nothing wrong with it.  Listening is the best tool to be understood. Especially if you are in sales, it becomes vital for success.

If I need to give one single piece of selling advice, it would be “Do not speak more than your customer.” Because when you are not speaking, you are listening, and if you are talking less than your customer, you hear more.  It sounds obvious, but it is not that easy to apply as in sales, we are all trained to speak.  Speak about ourselves, our company, our references, our products, our success, and so on; it is all about us.  Yet we forget one central point about sales…that it is indeed all about buying. Therefore, it is all about our customers, not us.  And focusing on the customer requires listening. 

Although it seems easy, effective listening is more difficult than most of us think, and it is clearly more difficult than talking.  In the book, Co-Active Coaching, Henry and Karen Kimsey-House explain the three levels of listening and how the art of listening can be cultivated:

Level 1:

Also called internal listening because while listening, our focus is on our inner voice, and we are more focused on our thoughts, our response, or something that we would like to add on top of what is said.  I call this “Listening to speak” because we prepare the next thing we want to say while listening.  This level of listening can be helpful when we are collecting information. For example, if you’re going to buy a car and listen to its features, this level of listening is enough to see if it responds to your needs.

Level 2:

Also called focus listening.  This level of listening includes hearing the person’s words and paying attention to the emotions, values, and what is not said.  I like to describe this as “Listening to hear.” Most of us can get this level only in selected situations, such as the first date with a love interest.  And even then, it isn’t easy to keep the focus all the time.  In such a situation, we switch between level 1 and level 2, and it requires a certain level of effort to stay in level 2.

Level 3:

This is the highest level of listening, also called whole body listening. On top of level 2 listening, you pay attention to the language patterns, voice changes and stress changes, and body language.  In other words, we are focusing on what they really mean besides everything they say.  It also includes some intuition. Few of us can get this point without any intentional practice, and I describe it as “Listening to understand.”   A good example of this is a friend of yours explaining to you a “very exciting” job offer with an unusual monotone voice, and you feel like there is something which prevents your friend from sounding excited about it.  It is almost impossible to stay at this level all the time.

 Despite the importance of listening, in sales, at some point we need to speak as well.  Level 3 listening helps us ask genuine questions that we are not trying to get specific answers to. Once we have “real answers,” the job of the salesperson becomes much more manageable.  Then you can adjust what you would like to say accordingly and make sure that you are well understood. 

As you can see, listening is the best way to get to be understood.

For further reading:

The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, by Stephen

CoveyCo-Active Coaching, Henry and Karen Kimsey-House