Ryan Dohrn says deep listening moves sales conversations faster and shows respect to prospects. He warns against interrupting and just repeating back words. His fixes: Post-it reminders at your desk, space between meetings to research, and deliberate listening practice instead of role-playing.
What's going on, friends and fans? Ryan Dohrn here, and we're talking sales. One of the things I love to really focus on is listening deeply. Now, I'll admit that I tend to talk all the time because it's part of my job. And so I'll admit, and probably my wife of 27 years would agree, I'm not always the best listener. Because in sales, what are we always trying to do? Solve problems, right? So I admit it, I'm really not the best listener, but I'm really pretty good at it when I'm working with customers as long as I'm focused and I understand the benefits of listening deeply. Okay, let me give you some exercises you can think about. But before we do that, let's back up a little bit. Have you ever been talking to a customer and you're so in your brain, you're thinking so much of, okay, I understand the question, I already know the answer. You're waiting for them to wrap up or sometimes you interrupt to give them the answer because you already know it. It's sort of like you're sitting like this, kind of on the edge of your chair, kind of sitting forward. Friends, there's really nothing worse than somebody that's not listening to you. They already know the answer to the question, so they lean forward in their chair or on the Zoom call, or they interrupt because they just want to get on with the question. They already know the answer. It's sort of like when your child or a friend is asking you something and you already know the answer, so you just give it to them and kind of interrupt. What's interesting is you're not listening deeply. And the reason you're not listening deeply is because you don't feel like you need to. What I've observed though is the moments of time where I actually listen deeply, I learn more. When I'm paying attention and not trying to formulate the answer in my head or get the answer out, I almost always get more information and I get further faster in the sales conversation. See, listening deeply is about proving to the customer that you're paying attention. Now, I'm not a big fan of parroting, okay? Parroting, like Polly want a cracker, that kind of parrot. Parroting, different than parenting. Parroting is when you just repeat back to somebody what it is they just said to you. I actually find that to be a little bit annoying, and I find it to be a sales strategy that I don't like. And very often, friends, it just doesn't work very well. So instead of doing that, and instead of paraphrasing, I simply say back to them after they've spoken what they're going to say, that's a very good point. I made some notes about that. May I ask you a further question? Or if they're looking for an answer, that's a very good question. I've made some notes about that and I've got some good answers for you. And then you spend just a little bit of time answering that. Friends, I think it's important for us as salespeople because we have so much in our heads that we may need to pay attention and we need to listen deeply to truly understand. And also we need to listen deeply to be quite honestly respectful to the person that we're dealing with. Do you have a friend or a family member that constantly interrupts all the time? Well, I'm one of those people and I didn't realize until my beautiful sister-in-law pointed it out to me. She's like, you realize you interrupt your brother all the time? I turned to my brother and I said, I do? I interrupt you all the time? He said, yeah, all the time. Why? Because I wasn't listening deeply. I was just listening superficially. My mind was wandering. I wanted to move on to the next thing. So here's some exercises to think about. First and foremost, you might want a little Post-it note next to your computer. I've got several that are here next to my computer. One of them says, speak slowly. The other is, listen deeply. And I've got them stuck right here to the side of, of my computer. So I like to remind myself of that. The next thing is I try not to book meetings back to back. It doesn't give me enough time to focus and prepare. So I try to put at least 15, 20, 30 minutes between my sales calls so that I can really look on LinkedIn, see the person that I'm talking to, learn a little bit about them, and be prepared to talk about the things that might be on LinkedIn, I might've seen on their website, or whatever the circumstance is. So the first might be some reminders, slow down, focus. The second piece, give yourself time to really research. And the third is practice. Now, most salespeople, you're like, oh, practice? Are you talking about role-playing? I'm not talking about role-playing. I'm talking about practicing listening. What's interesting is in the sales business, most of us spend so much time talking that at the end of the day, if the room is silent, our ears ring. It's why so many of us, me included, sleep with a fan on at night. Because when we lay in bed in the quiet, our ears ring. What that tells us is we talk so much because that's what we do in the sales business. We don't spend that much time listening. Now, in all medical-wise, technically, if your ears are ringing, you might have something wrong. So you might want to talk, you know, to the doctor. But you know what I'm saying? We spend so much time talking and so little time listening that very often it's hard for us. So the third thing that you want to do is just practice listening. When you think about it, friends, when you practice listening and you listen deeply, it's going to get you further faster in life, in love, and almost everything else that you do. So the lesson today is listen deeply. Spend time listening. Focus on listening. And when you do, what you'll find is you're almost always going to be more successful in the sales business. Friends, never forget, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it. And they're not. We're not crazy. I mean, I guess we're a little crazy. Sales is a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. Hey, I travel all over the country and around the world speaking at sales conferences and national sales meetings. Love to do that for your group as well. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. All right, friends, we'll see you next week.
