Listening.

In going through my Dale Carnegie course over this past year and pursuing moving from a coach to an instructor, I’ve come to realize that the most powerful communicators listen well – it’s not what they say but it’s what they allow others to say. They steer the conversation with pertinent questions to elicit responses to achieve a mutual goal or a win-win outcome. It’s not what you say it’s what you hear. I’ve been in too many business presentations where the presenter primarily talked about his or her company, its background, track record and the clients that he or she has. The more effective approach is to talk about specific applications of your product or service to the company that you are presenting to and then ask open ended questions in order to stimulate thought and conversation around working together. Remember that people use the WIFM philosophy – What’s in it for me?

I recently had a business situation where I was explaining a service to someone who would find a lot of value in it. At one point he said he just couldn’t sign on at this time. Rather than ending the conversation, taking it personally or continuing to justify why he needed the service (continuing to talk like I used to) I asked a simple yet powerful question. Why? After some hesitation, a silence that seemed to go on forever, he admitted that he had many financial obligations after the summer months and with the kids going back to school and preparing for the holidays. So, it wasn’t that he wasn’t interested in the service; he just wasn’t in the financial position at the present time to move forward with it.

I came back with another question, since asking him one in the first place worked. What could you afford if I created a special pay schedule for you? After hesitating again he gave me some parameters. I then ask a third and final question. IF I were to allow you to pay along that timeline would you join the service? His answer – YES!

Amazing! We had a deal simply because I asked questions, listened to his responses and devised a solution based on his responses.

Now keep in mind that listening for the sake of listening is not what I mean here. Another words, you have to process what the person is saying and formulate your next response or reaction to what that person just said. Otherwise listening is ineffective. Just having someone to listen to you, like a shoulder to cry on, does provide some remedy but is not the point of this. I mean actionable listening – where you take action to what you are hearing. Ever hear the expression – You are listenin to me but you aren’t hearin me. What the person means who says that is that you aren’t processing what I just told you – you are not thinking in my best interest – or you just care about yourself and what you think and how you feel.

Dale Carnegie has a principle from his book How to Win Friends and Influence People about enhancing relationships. "Arouse in the other person an eager want. We are constantly selling our ideas as business professionals. People do things for their reasons, not ours. If we tell them why our ideas will benefit them, we will be surprised how much cooperation develops in our organization. "

Remember that there is a reason why you have two ears and only one mouth – listen more talk less!

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