October 25, 2022
Let’s talk about the most important skill in life.
The one skill that everyone kinda knows it’s important, but 99% of the people are still terrible at it.
Spoiler. It’s not storytelling (which may be surprising coming from a storytelling coach).
It’s listening.
Real listening. Not pretending to listen, but empathic listening.
Empathic listening means to listen with your whole self — giving your undivided attention both intellectually and emotionally. Empathetic listening asks you to go beyond the surface of what is being said. The goal is to uncover why people feel a certain way, understand how they are affected emotionally and empathize with them.
In 2016, Gong set out to understand what sets the top-performing sales reps apart from other sales reps. For that they analyzed the data of 25,000 B2B sales conversations using AI. What they’ve found?
They found that the Top Sales Reps listened 26 percentage points more than the Bottom Sales Reps. The Top Reps talked on average 46% and listened 54%, while the Bottom Reps talked 72% and listening 28%.
Fascinating, right?
So, there is a correlation between how successful you are in sales and your ability to listen.
Listening helps you build trust, improve problem solving, and defuse any objections. It also just makes you a much more enjoyable person to be around.
But why does it matter for the stories you tell?
Because before telling any story, you need to have a great understanding of what’s going on in your clients’ business, what they’re struggling with, and what they’d like to accomplish in the future. It’s not enough to understand that your buyer wants ‘make more money’ or ‘be promoted’.
No, it’s about getting to the root of what your buyer wants in life such as ‘I want to have enough money to send my kid to an ivy league school, ‘I want my former classmates to look up to me’, or ‘I want to coach and mentor a team.’
You want to uncover what truly matters to your buyer.
Once you know that, you can select a story that is relevant them. A story about another customer that experienced similar struggles. You can use the information gathered through empathic listening to tailor your story.
Here are fives techniques that help you become a much better listener:
It’s very likely that your days are packed with back-to-back meetings. You jump from one meeting to the other without a minute in between. And even though you’d like to listen to the other person, your mind is still processing the information of the previous meeting.
How can you avoid that?
By grounding yourself.
Just take 30-60 seconds before any meeting to breathe deeply, notice the feet on the ground and feel the sensations on your body.
It helps to set your meetings to 25 minutes (instead of 30 minutes) or 55 minutes (instead of 60 minutes) by default.
You can only listen empathically if you’re fully present.
Instead of thinking about your next question or rushing into a solution (premature elaboration), listen to understand. Go into the call with the intention to understand what’s really going on. Often I tell myself, ‘I’m gonna listen as if I was Oprah Winfrey. I’m gonna find what truly matters to that person. I’m gonna listen to her as if he or she is the most interesting person on earth.”
Just by saying these things to myself once or twice, I’m more likely to make it a reality.
Instead of jumping in the moment the buyer stops talking, wait 1-3 seconds before you respond. That way you give your buyer space to tell you more. By holding the silence, you also signal that you’re processing the information that the buyer has given to you.
As a heads-up: This one feels extremely uncomfortable at first.
All our life, we’ve been conditioned to avoid any moment of silence. Many of us believe that a short silence means having a bad relationship. So, we anxiously jump in anytime there is a 1 second silence.
Try to move away from that thinking and experiment with holding the silence. Hold the silence for 1-3 seconds after the other person has finished his or her thought. It will be tough at the beginning, but it will feel less awkward after a few times. Guaranteed.
Instead of jumping from one question (/topic) to the other, try to go deeper into what the buyer has told you. The moment they share something important, ask them clarifying questions.
Here are my favorite questions you can ask:
Asking these questions will give you a deeper understanding of what truly is going on. It also signals that you’re really interested in what they tell you.
Instead of just asking them questions, try to make them feel understood. Your goal is make the buyer to feel, ‘wow, she really gets me.’
You can do that by paraphrasing what they’ve just heard and acknowledging the emotions.
Here are the phrases that I often use:
Note that we’re not only paraphrasing, but we’re also asking the buyer to confirm (e.g. “is that right?”, “is that correct?”).
That signals that you really care about their situation and confirms whether you actually understood them correctly. If you misunderstood them, it’s better to know that early on instead of sharing a story that is not relevant to them.
These are are five techniques to help you become a magnetic listener.
Good thing with empathic listening is that you can practice it anywhere and everyday.
You don’t need to wait for that one important meeting with the buyer.
You can practice listening anytime with your family, friends or, really, any person you talk to.
Give it a try and listen empathically in an upcoming conversation, using a few of the techniques we have just covered:
Don’t worry if you don’t apply all the five techniques yet. That usually takes some time.
But even if you just apply one of the techniques, you’ll already be a better listener than 99% of people out there.
Would you like to learn more on empathic listening? Then join our StorySelling Academy. Empathic listening is a core module in our academy. In the module you’ll learn and practice the techniques to become a star listener.
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