A Knack for Listening

Is listening a skill or a talent? The answer to this question reveals how good salespeople can become even better. Be careful, though: The answer may challenge some of your most deeply held notions about training and development.

In numerous sales management seminars, we have asked audiences to respond to the question posed above. Some managers firmly believe that listening is a skill. They think people can be trained to be better listeners and that sales performance improves as a result. Other managers insist that listening is an innate talent. They point out that some people just seem to be better listeners than others, and it's not because they've taken listening classes.

Nearly all managers are quick to agree that being a good listener is a crucial asset for salespeople. But is it essential? And what do we do with salespeople who aren't particularly good listeners?

A manager recently posed that last question to us when he was describing one of his reps: "Aaron consistently generates good results, but I think he could do even better if he would take the time to really listen to what his customers are saying," the manager remarked. "He doesn't routinely ask his customers good, probing questions. When we're going over a call in the car afterwards, I am sometimes surprised at how little he has heard. It's clear to me that Aaron would be a much better sales rep if he would only ask more questions and listen to what the customers are saying. What can I do to get him to be a more effective listener?"

This manager can surely find many programs available to "educate" poor listeners like Aaron. Indeed, a quick search on the Internet yields several options. Most of these programs would teach Aaron "tricks" to employ while he's making a sales call. They'd inform him that it's a good idea to repeat what the customer has said. Aaron would be encouraged to write down key points that his customer may mention. And he'd pointedly be told to stop thinking about what he's going to say next and concentrate exclusively on what the customer is saying.

All of this sounds like good advice. Would any of it make Aaron a better listener? Possibly. But will this advice make Aaron a more effective salesperson? Probably not. Rather than helping Aaron, there is a good chance that these well-intentioned programs would hinder his productivity. Why?

A talent, not a skill

Listening is essentially a talent -- a pattern of processing information. As human beings, we learned to listen before we could even walk. Listening is related to hearing, and hearing is automatic. Even before we are born, we're able to detect sound in the womb. When we come into the world, we're inundated by a cacophony of sounds: voices, machines, traffic, television, radio -- even the sound of our own crying.

We can't possibly pay attention to all that noise. So our brain starts to process which sounds to pay attention to and which ones to ignore. We learn to filter out most of the noises we hear. In fact, our brain is so effective at this process that we don't even consciously hear those sounds anymore. What we listen to are the relatively few sounds that get through our own uniquely created filters. Once these filters are established, they are quite difficult -- if not impossible -- to change.

But listening is not just about filtering sounds. It's also about paying attention to what we hear. For example, when someone introduces herself to you and you can't remember her name, it's not that you didn't hear her -- and no, you're not rude. As with all of us, you have several sensory perceptions occurring simultaneously, all competing for your mental attention. When the woman says her name, you might very well be focused at that moment on another sound -- maybe ambient music or another conversation.

Similarly, when someone is speaking to us, we may be paying attention to the actual words they are using. We may be noticing their facial expressions or focusing on what we're going to say in response. Or we may be paying attention to something going on outside the window.

What we pay attention to is largely the result of our pattern of learned responses or filters that developed when we were very young. Some of these patterned responses are like breathing, which is largely automatic and happens without effort. However, if we want to, we can control our breathing. We can hold our breath, for example, or we can take slow, steady, deep breaths as a matter of conscious effort.

In the same way, if we aren't good listeners, we can force ourselves to listen more intently. But it's hard to do this for very long, and eventually our automatic responses want to take over. In situations when there is a lot at stake or when there are many competing stimuli vying for our attention, we're more inclined to fall back on our automatic patterned responses. Furthermore, when we're acting in concert with these patterned responses, we're at our most authentic.

OK, so how is all of this relevant to Aaron becoming a better salesperson?

Major misconceptions

First, Aaron has no misconceptions about his listening ability. He freely admits that he doesn't always pay close attention to his customers' comments. Sometimes, he's merely waiting for customers to stop talking so he can resume. And on other occasions, he's thinking about what he's going to say next.

But his manager -- who built his own sales style around being a good listener and responding to what customers tell him -- does have a major misconception. From this manager's perspective, listening is an essential ingredient to excelling at sales, and all sales reps would improve their performance if they were better listeners. Although being a good listener has its advantages, there are myriad examples of exceptional salespeople (like Aaron) who just don't possess this talent.

Consistently succeeding in sales is a complicated process that involves many factors, from conveying information and building credibility and trust to gaining commitments, being organized, and following up. Only a very small portion of the population has a configuration of talents that enables them do each of these things exceptionally well. But even those who can sell quite effectively don't all approach selling exactly the same way. Great salespeople don't all have the same talents.

For individuals who are good listeners, asking questions and listening to the answers is an ideal sales method. It's a great way to establish credibility and build trust. It's certainly not, however, the only way to accomplish these objectives. In Aaron's case in particular, he has other talents that contribute to his success.

One of Aaron's top talent themes is Communication. He's very good at telling stories and anecdotes to customers in a captivating way. Sometimes these stories are entertaining, but they also convey that Aaron has considerable knowledge and experience about his products and his customers' needs. Command is another of Aaron's top themes. He is both willing and able to steer the conversation in a particular direction. He knows what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, and he does this confidently when he is acting in his most authentic manner.

But every time Aaron tries to incorporate more questions into his sales calls, it backfires on him. Because he's not a good listener, he often doesn't actually "hear" what the customer is saying. This lack of attention causes him to lose credibility with the customer. The simple fact is that if you're not a good listener, you are better off not asking too many questions in the first place, because you really don't pay close enough attention to the responses -- and it's obvious.

Yes, occasionally Aaron can force himself to listen, but it's not an innate ability for him. And people don't perform at their best if they must force themselves to be something they are not. Authenticity is more important in building trust and credibility than any sales technique -- even a seemingly essential technique like listening.

Aaron's manager was right: Aaron isn't a good listener. The problem is, like too many managers, Aaron's manager spends far more time noticing Aaron's weaknesses and not nearly enough time recognizing his strengths. Instead of focusing on why Aaron isn't a better listener, he should look for ways to show Aaron how to use his Communication and Command talents to get even better.

For example, Aaron should be encouraged to think about what stories or anecdotes seem to work best. Storytellers get better with practice, and over time, they can develop a rich repertoire of material that includes exactly the right story for the right situation. He might also use his Command -- and a bit of self-deprecating humor -- to say to the client, "Let's work together to create a list of everything I can do to meet your needs. If I don't write it down, it doesn't happen!"

In this way, Aaron can accomplish many of the end goals that being a better listener would produce. He has just used his own unique talents to get there. When sales techniques are matched with the right sales talents, they don't seem like techniques at all -- and that is when they work most effectively with customers.

Listening, like many of the capabilities we regard as "sales skills," is really a sales talent. Real development of our good performers comes from getting them to build a sales approach based on what they naturally do best.