Close More Sales Through Active Listening
Download The Whitepaper
4 Techniques to Become An Active Listener and Close More Sales
Active listening and asking the right questions are excellent ways to uncover your prospect’s pain points. Effective salespeople listen carefully and gently encourage prospects to reveal their real problems and what they are looking for without appearing to control the conversation. This gentle encouragement is why active listening becomes so important.
What is active listening?
When we say active listening, we really mean how you reassure prospects that you are engaged and understand what they are saying. But doing this, crucially, without interrupting them in a way that stops them from divulging more information. Here are our expert’s favourite active listening techniques.
Tell prospects that you understand
By reassuring the prospect by saying something like ‘I understand’, ‘I get what you mean’ or ‘That makes sense to me’, you can quickly develop trust. Once they trust you the chances of them investing in what you’re selling is hugely increased.
Repeat the prospect’s words
Sometimes called ‘parroting’, this simple technique involves comforting prospects by repeating what they said back to them in the form of a question. This technique will mean they will feel you fully understand them and are following everything they are saying.
Paraphrasing the prospect’s words
Rephrasing the prospect’s statement in your own words is a great way to ensure you are understanding and following exactly what they are saying. It offers more variety than the previous two techniques and should be even more effective than reusing the other techniques several times.
Offer feedback on what the prospect is saying
Top salespeople will listen so carefully that they can pick out individual words and phrases repeated by the prospect that will tell you exactly how they are feeling. Then, when it comes time for you to chime in, you can explain what you gathered from their explanation. It could sound something like this: ‘So it sounds to me like you’re frustrated with the bugs in your current system and want something that can streamline your process?’
For more information on the above points please download the full guide. The guide also includes a list of questions you can use to take your active listening to the next level.
Sales training sessions on active listening and more
For those looking to elevate their sales performance with proven techniques and strategies, Sandler UK is here to help. We’ve been in the game for over forty years. And so far we’ve helped countless clients improve their selling performance under our tutelage. For those after face-to-face training sessions, we offer plenty of options at our local training centres. Alternatively, you can contact us to find out more about what we can do for you.
