The 3 key listening skills for a sales visit

In order to be effective, salespeople need to develop a number of key skills. For us the one that stands out above all others is active listening. After all, it is their responsibility to listen to understand the issues that the prospect is having so they can formulate a strategy to help and support them.

So, what are the three common types of active listening and what should they consider?

1. Support Listening

Your sales team should encourage your prospect to talk so they can learn about their role, responsibilities, and the challenges they and their business are facing. By asking open questions, the prospect should do most of the talking. The salesperson can use the opportunity to collect as much information as possible while avoiding the temptation to interrupt. The salesperson should listen carefully and show that they understand what is being said without distracting the prospect from continuing to speak.

2. Responding Listening

Responding listening is centred around relationship building. Along with the information gathered, your sales team needs to show that they are interested in the prospect, what they have to say, responding with curiosity and discussing how they can help them in the future. It’s important therefore that your salesperson concentrates on the prospect and uses dialogue that puts them at ease and shows empathy.

3. Retention Listening

Lastly, there are situations where your sales team may not be personally engaged in dialogue and are not able to build a relationship with the prospect. Here they should use retention listening skills to listen out for facts and hard information that they will find helpful going forward.

Along with these three active listening techniques, one useful exercise that we recommend before moving on to the next stage of the sales process is to summarise what the prospect has said so that they know they have been listened to. Then, we suggest that your salespeople specifically highlight the needs from the issues the prospect has revealed, together with any solutions that they can provide to assist them.

7 signs your salespeople aren't listening properly

We think that listening along with questioning are the most important skills your sales team should possess. Rather than just hearing, they need to become effective listeners. A skill that can be developed through concentration and a little effort.

There’s a chance that your salespeople aren’t having productive sales calls or visits because they're not listening properly. This can result in the inability to obtain sufficient customer intelligence and a lack of enquiries and purchase orders.

So, what are the 7 common causes of ineffective listening with salespeople?

1. They interrupt the prospect before they’ve had the chance to finish what they are saying.
2. They pretend that they are paying attention, but they are really thinking about other things.
3. They are impatient and cannot wait to have their say before letting the prospect finish talking.
4. They pay little attention to what the prospect is saying because they are mentally preparing their next question.
5. They have already decided what they think the prospect is going to say and make assumptions.
6. They get frustrated with how the prospect is coming across and don’t listen to the content of what they’re actually saying.
7. They are so enthusiastic that they tend to ignore either good or bad news.