Archive for August, 2011
Make Your Sales Numbers
We recently conducted a workshop for sales reps and when we showed them the results from Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio®, they were both shocked and enlightened. Their individual and group reports revealed them to be more interested in hearing themselves than listening to their customers.
Their comments ranged from: “Are you sure you tabulated these results correctly?” To: “Holy smokes, no wonder we don’t have such great relationships with our customers.”
The following day we showed the group report to their managers, without divulging anyone’s individual results, and there was a lot of head nodding. The managers, rather smugly said things such as, “I tell them over and over to listen to their customers, but they’re in too much of a hurry.” Or “Maybe that’s why they struggle every month to make their numbers.”
It would have been very easy to let it go at that, but we knew the managers were part of the problem. They had taken Hear! Hear? as well. We asked what they expected their results to look like. “Just the opposite of our reps. Our Extra-personal listening will be much stronger. We listen to others.”
That’s not what their results indicated. They were equally Inner-personal focused-listeners who cared more about their own interests than their customers, in this case the reps, not external customers. While there’s nothing the matter with being an Inner-personal listener, especially for technical people who have to connect new information to what they already know, that modality was not most fitting for those sales folks. The reps had to fully comprehend their customers’ needs, and the managers had to know what was going on with the reps.
We brought everyone together, managers and reps, to examine their listening habits and their impact on sales performance. No need to go through the whole process here with you, but let me tell you the three techniques we taught them to practice with clients to improve their sales numbers by being more flexible when they listened:
- Inquire.
- Check for Understanding.
- Go slow to move fast
Inquire: Clients are always flattered when you ask about their business goals, challenges, and history. It shows you’ve done your homework when you go into a sales call with some excellent thought-provoking questions already prepared. Most customers will gladly answer intelligent questions. If you show up with good inquiries, you will most likely be seen as interested, smart, thoughtful and on their side.
Check for understanding. Far too many sales people jump off an interaction too early. They think they “get it” when what they’ve gotten is their own interpretation of the task or problem, not necessarily what the customer has to share. “Let me see if I understand” should be the sales person’s mantra. Reiterate what the customer said, but in your words, not parroting, but paraphrasing. Both the rep and the customer should walk away from an interaction with clarity and confidence.
Go slow to move fast. What the sales managers said about the reps being in a hurry is the downfall of many sales pros. They want to Make the Sale, but that’s a transactional view of selling rather than being relationship-oriented, which is the more satisfying way to work with customers. We show our participants how to use body language to control the speed of an interaction and create comfortable space-sharing. It might take an up-front investment of time to establish a relationship, but it’s definitely worth it to become the go-to person down the road. Sales people who take time to get to know their customers build trust, which is a powerful sales tool.
The salesforce and managers in this anecdote are working on using all four of their listening modalities to gather the most information possible from customers, establish real relationships, and use well-vetted information to provide first-rate solutions.
Wasted Words: Do We Make It Harder to Listen than Necessary?
Recent research conducted by Rom Schrift, of Wharton, and Oded Netzer and Ran Kivetz of Columbia University shows that when a decision is easier than people expect, they often make it more difficult.
Do people do the same when listening?
I thought about that when I sat in on a meeting of a team. I was there to observe their communication patterns and identify how those patterns influence the quality of their decisions. I asked myself: Are they making decisions with the appropriate kind and amount of information and does their pace of decision-making fit the problem they are addressing
While that might be an excellent dissertation topic, I needed to make my observations and provide counsel pretty fast. Armed with the Wharton/Columbia research, I looked for listening waste. Here are some of my findings:
- When someone spoke and there was agreement among the listeners, the listeners went on and on about their points of agreement. Waste of time, attention, rigor. It would have been far better for the points of agreement to be noted, and the majority of time spent on points of disagreement.
- When a speaker provided a lot of details and data, rarely were there questions or pushback from the listeners. Waste of learning, clarification, intellectual conflict. It would have been much more effective if there were debate or Q&A to provide a platform for discussion and to increase the grasp of the content.
- Different people commanded different levels of listening attention. Waste of collaboration. The team needs to listen to everyone, regardless of position, authority or expertise.
- They used poor listening hygiene. That is, people talked over one another, held side conversations, didn’t acknowledge the speaker’s points, and failed to show attentive body language. Waste of available information and team cohesion. The team needs listening ground rules, training, and reinforcement for how to listen well.
- There was a race to the finish. Rather than acknowledging the breadth and depth of a problem, they tried to fit the decision-making process into the time allotted for a meeting. Waste of quality decision. They need a decision-making process to avoid the current free-for-all, or loudest voice wins, form of deciding.
It is easier to listen when the outcomes are established, when people actually know how to listen, and when there’s a problem-solving process in place. As the researchers point out, we often complicate decision-making because we misplace our efforts. If we set about listening with good intention and good skills, our focus can then be on garnering meaning and information from an interaction that will lead to high quality decisions.
Unintended Consequences
Whenever I facilitate strategic planning sessions, I always ask people to consider the unintended consequences of their thinking. That often saves a lot of resources down the line. I learned the concept almost two decades ago when I was working on a project lead by Dr. Edwards Deming, the master of the quality movement.
Dr. Deming postulated that the cost of an error made very early in the process was $10 or less. At the prototype stage it leaped to $50; at manufacture $100 and once in the customer’s hands, $1000. I might have the exact figures wrong, but his point stuck with me all these years. It’s too expensive to ignore the “what if’s” at every stage of decision-making.
That means the four (4) listening habits have to come into play when examining unintended consequences. Or said another way, what happens if a listener ignores some of the information available to him because he listens only with his preferred listening mode? He might not have intended to listen with only one ear, but there will most likely be serious consequences as a result of partial attention.
Examples:
- Inner-Personal listeners who listen only for what appeals to their experience, knowledge and interests might miss out on meaning for others, details, and new ideas.
- Extra-Personal listeners who listen only for the impact on others might miss out on meaning for themselves, details and new ideas.
- Problem-Solving listeners who listen only for the details might miss out on meaning for themselves as well as others and new ideas.
- Conceptualizing listeners who listen only for new ideas might miss out on meaning for themselves as well as others and details.
It’s just too expensive to overlook the unintended consequences of poor listening.
Cognitive and Listening Fluency
Just what does the adage “In one ear and out the other” mean? Does any listening occur or is the information treated like water flowing down a slide at an amusement park—fast, fun and recycled without adding any benefit or outcome?
Or does it mean the listener is so adept that the information is grasped with little effort? My guess it’s the former, but there is something to be said about being aware and facile.
What is fluency?
Cognitive Fluency means that people prefer things that are easy to think about. For example, companies with easier to remember names tend to outperform those with more obscure ones (thus Listening Impact rather than The Impact of Good Listening for our organization’s name).
Listening Fluency means that people can grasp meaning from one listening habit to another with equal ability. For example, a person can hear as accurately in the mode of an Inner-Personal listener as in the mode of a Problem-Solving listener.
What’s enough fluency and what’s too much?
We can dummy down cognitive fluency to such a degree that there won’t be enough interest to challenge even the laziest of minds. There must be something that sparks attention.
Following are some examples of where cognitive and listening fluency intersect:
- You’re in a meeting and the presentation is full of details, new concepts, and technical words. That’s stretching your cognitive and listening fluency beyond your capacity, so you tune out.
- You need to purchase a new TV and the salesperson tells you the three major features of the set you’re looking at. You can take in the information without a problem and are confident the salesperson can answer any questions you have. Neither your cognitive nor listening fluency is overly challenged, so you stay engaged.
- Your customer, in an industry that you’re familiar with, tells you about her business and their needs. Because you know the industry you have cognitive alignment, but your Extra-Personal listening skills must remain sharp to listen to the particulars of her situation.
How do you know if you’re being fluent? Here are some questions you can ask yourself?
- Am I using simple words that most people will know?
- Do I make no more than three clear points?
- Do I use descriptive language to illustrate my ideas?
- Am I addressing all four (4) listening habits?
What other questions would you suggest that people use to check their cognitive and listening fluency?