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# System prepended metadata

title: Active listening in sales
tags: [Module 7]

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tags: Module 7
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# Active listening in sales

The American sales legend Zig Ziglar once said, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what *they* want.” To help prospects get what they want, you must understand their needs. To gain this understanding, you need to use active listening.

We cannot stress enough how important active listening is for being successful in sales. Let's start with giving your 3 reasons why:

1. You can only diagnose a need if you are listening to what your prospects are actually saying.
2. You can only ask great follow up questions if you build on your prospect's previous answers.
3. Showing that you understand their points and needs is a key element to establishing trust and credibility. It shows that you care!

Put differently, nothing is worse than a potential customer saying: 
> *"As I already said 2 minutes ago, we dont do / have / want ABC."* 

It's a killer to your relationship and reputation. *Over.* *Done.* 

There are a few specific ways to do active listening. We want to share a few that we particularly like: mirroring, note taking, repeating/ summarizing, asking relevant questions.

Before we jump in, how about a great example demonstrating what a difference active listening can make? 😀

Let's see active listening applied in a mock sales call done by Jacco and Dan. 

{%youtube 2P1zEH2YcY4 %}

## Body language
Many discovery calls are nowadays done using video. It's a huge chance to establish rapport, especially if you use body language to your advantage:
* Listen with your eyes. Maintain eye contact to establish and keep a better communication connection with the prospect. This contributes to building trust and establish rapport. 
* Adopt an “open” listening posture. Nod to express understanding. Smile. Don’t cross your arms or legs in a defensive, “closed up” manner.

## Note-taking
One of the easiest ways to show you are actively listening is by taking notes:
* You can take notes digitally or physically using pen and paper
* Digitally: share your screen so that the prospect can see your notes (e.g. during a discovery call). If you are not sharing your screen, tell them you are keeping notes so that they dont think you are not listening when you are tilting your head towards your notes or when they hear keyboard typing.  
* Pen and paper: Again, tell them you are taking notes and therefore looking away from them at times. Use your pen for gestures so that they can see it as well.

:::info
**Practical tip:** When notetaking, do NOT write down every single word. Instead, focus on key words or experiment with symbols. You add notes to your CRM right after the meeting to be more elaborative. Your initial notes are just mental cues so that you don't forget.
:::

## Repeating / Summarizing
Another extremely effective active listening technique is repeating or summarizing what you heard. This way not only does your prospect know you have listened, but they notice that you have also understood. Especially, when you paraphrase (condensing into something shorter) or repeat using your own words. The latter being the most effective one. 

Example for Hyrise Academy:

> Prospect: "Finding good SDR talent is extremely difficult and time intensive these days. I have 2 recruiters and most of what they do everyday is active sourcing for profiles on Linkedin. However, with very little return."
> 
> Me: "If I understand correctly, even with 2 recruiters you are not getting the results you need."
> 
> Prospect: "Yes, that's how it is."
> 

:::info
**Practical tip:** Summarizing is a great technique to use especially after having asked 2-3 open pain or impact questions. Having gotten good insights from your prospect, you want to summarize those points to make sure you have understood correctly. Let your prospect confirm to create more commitment. Especially at the end of discovery calls, we highly recommend to summarize key insights before suggesting next steps.
:::

## Ask relevant questions
The quality of your questions show the level of your active listening. Goal is to ask smart follow-up questions to answers your prospect has just given. It will earn you their trust as it serves as proof you are attentive. 

Should you ask your questions regardless of your prospect's previous answers, you won't get far. It clearly shows you have not listened. Worse even, it shows that you don't care. 

Bad Example:

> Prospect: "Luckily, we are not struggling with finding talented SDRs at the moment, maybe also because we are only recruiting for 2 this quarter."
> 
> Me: "Ok, I understand. Do you have budget for finding SDRs through Hyrise?"
> 
> Prospect: "Excuse me...?"

Please, don't copy. This is a first class example for SDRs just blindly going through their qualification questions. Zero value added to the conversation and all trust lost. Obviously, it makes no sense at all asking for budget if the prospect just has just said that they don't have a pain. Listening at its worst. 

Good Example A: Let them elaborate on the HOW

> Prospect: "Luckily, we are not struggling with finding talented SDRs at the moment, maybe also because we are only recruiting for 2 this quarter."
> 
> Me: "Can you please elaborate, how you are currently looking for SDRs?"
> 

This way you may find out that the current process works for 2 people but no longer for more once and if they grow faster. Also, you could find out that it's currently extremely time instensive so that they could still benefit from working with, in this case, Hyrise (saving time that they spend on other value creating tasks).

Good Example B: Test for better timing 

> Prospect: "Luckily, we are not struggling with finding talented SDRs at the moment, maybe also because we are only recruiting for 2 this quarter."
> 
> Me: "What does your SDR hiring plan look like for the rest of the year?"
> 


:::info
**Practical tip:** Do NOT...
* EVER interrupt your prospect. Not only is it disrespectful, but it SCREAMS that you just want to get your point across regardless of what they have just said.
* ask questions irrespective of what was just said. Questions must fit the context of what is currently being discussed.
:::

Before we move on to the next section, how about a fun example for active listening? 😁

{%youtube 4VOubVB4CTU %}

&nbsp;
👂 Active listening - DONE! Now, we are putting everything you have just learned together to conduct world class discovery calls. 

*Onwards.*

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