SKILL


Enhance Professional Selling Skills JOE CHARBONNEAU


“Listening” means more than just hearing. In fact, there are three levels of listening: nonhearing, hearing, and thinking. Which level you use will determine your sales success.


The first level, nonhearing, isn’t really listening at all. That’s when our minds and thoughts are off somewhere else – maybe on what we intend to say next. This type of “listening” actually impedes understanding.


At the second level, hearing, we hear the words the other person is saying. However, we take in and react only superficially to what is said – often failing to absorb the deeper


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meaning and ideas the other person is conveying. True communication occurs at the


third level of listening: thinking – when we evaluate and analyze what we hear. Successful salespeople know both the secrets and the value of listening on the thinking level. They realize it’s the only way to accurately interpret what the speaker means. They also know that listening on this third level is a very


effective way of giving psychological “strokes” to their clients. “Stroking” is a word that comes


from transactional analysis, which tells us that all human beings have a need for attention. Infants, for example, will not grow to their potential if deprived of human attention. In later years, both as children and adults, we all re- ceive strokes when someone sincerely listens to us.


How do we develop this third level of listening? Here are some guideposts from an authority on the art of listening. Listen to the meaning, not the


words. Don’t be put off by a speaker’s style or vocabulary – you might not hear what’s being said. Even if the topic or speaker isn’t exciting, you


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Impresses on reps the value of listening more and


talking less


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