Listening: The skitl of master closers

By James Olsen

fF WE listen to our customers, they will tell us how to lclose them. Many of us are so intent on what we are going to say or on ih" details of our deal, that we miss what our customers are saying.

How can we better listen to our customers?

Prepare our call. When we prepare our call, we don't have to worry about what we are going to say next, so we can concentrate on what our customers are saying. The grand majority of the salespeople I work with that struggle do not prepare their calls. Because they are not prepared, they spend a lot of their time thinking about what they are going to say. Because of this, they cannot give their full attention to what their customers are saying. Buy signs are often subtle and will be missed when we are thinking about our next sentence.

Follow up on ttthrow awayt'comments. Many times our customers will answer our initial, "How are you?" with "I'm fine, a little tired, but fine, what are you selling today?" The "a little tired" comment june seem like a throw away, but it is not. Our customers want us to follow up on it. They might not even know they have made the comment. Salespeople tell me they can't get customers to open up and talk to them. It can be difficult to get a buyer (who takes calls from many salespeople all day) to open up. When we follow up on throw-away comments, they will.

Follow up questions with questions of our own. Many times a customer will ask us what we did over the weekend. So many of us take this opportunity to blah, blah, blah about our weekend. Don't. We should give a brief answer about our weekend and then ask our customers about theirs. We june have a customer who never opens up ask us, "Does your kid play soccer?" When we hear this question, we can be sure our customer's kid does, so follow up by asking if our customer's kid plays soccer. You can bet their kid scored the winning goal over the weekend.

Match our customer's words and phrases. Listen to the words and phrases our customers use, and use them when we speak with them. This will make communication and closing easier. If our customer says, "James, I need a load that will fit my inventory like a party hat" when we come back to close we say, "John, I've got a load that is going to fit your inventory like a party hat." (Whatever we do, we don't correct the pronunciation of our customers !)

Match the rhythm and the volume of our customer's speech. When we match the rhythm and volume of our customer's speech we will get in sync with them. Do they speak quickly? Then we speak quickly. Do they speak slowly? Then we slow down. If our customers speak in a soft voice, and we speak too loudly, we will make them uncomfortable. If our customer is a loud speaker and we speak in too low of a voice this customer june think we don't believe in our product.

Relax while our customers are speaking. So many of us listen as if we had a taxi waiting with the meter running. Our customers can feel this tension, and when they do, their communication with us will be stilted and cut short. Remember the last time you were in front of a good listener? They make us feel that they have all the time in the world to listen to what we have to say. If we project this to our customers, they wlll want to talk to us. They wlll want to tell us everything that is on their mind.

Pause before responding. When we jump on the end of our customer's sentences, we send the message that what they said has no bearing on the conversation. We send the message that all we are there to do is get the order and move on to the next one. We must pause and consider what our customer has said before saying what we have to say.

Our customers' speech is the window into how they buy. Remember the following formula (and sell more!):

The way our customer talk = the way they think = the way they listen = the way they buy.

- James Olsen is principal of Reality Sales Training, Portland, Or., specializing in sales training for the lumber industry, and host of The Sales Doctor Radio Show (www.salesdoctor.biz). He can be reached at james@reality-salestraining.com or (503) 544-3572.