Here’s the first of a two-part guest post from regular Telesales Magic contributor Paul Archer of Archer Training. This time round Paul discusses how important it is to listen to your prospects and clients when selling them on the phone (or face to face, even).

Your Own Volume Control – Listening on the telephone in fact listening in general, has to be one of he hardest things to do continuously.  Yes we can all listen for five minute bursts but to do it all day every day, just has to be hard graft.

So next time you feel your listening ability has taken an early bath imagine your very own personal volume control. Now your volume control has 3 levels – 1, 2 and 3.

Most of the time it’s on level 1 which is selfish listening and there’s nothing wrong with this. Only the other day I was on a business trip to a strange airport and I was operating on level 1 listening.  I was looking out for signs and noises that would help me on my journey.  I wasn’t interested in anyone else just myself and my next steps. But in selling or dealing with people on the phone, we mustn’t focus on just ourselves.  We need to get into their shoes and that’s level 2 on your volume control.

Turn up the volume and start to think of the world in their shoes.  How do they see things, have empathy for their situation, understand their world. Have you spoken to a friend recently that has just returned from a holiday abroad to the same place as you’ve been.  Did you find yourself comparing their experience with yours?  I bet you did.  I do, until I kick myself back into level 2 listening.

Finally there’s volume level 3. Rarely do we cross into this level. Here we begin to hear and see things around our customer that are not obvious. We develop a kind of sixth sense so we can hear what’s not being said as well as what’s being said.

They call it intuition.  Trust it, as it won’t let you down. So next time you’re on the telephone and you’re struggling to listen, think of your imaginary volume control.

Reflective Statements -These are very handy little devices that show the customer that you’re listening and help to build empathy.

These are used to reflect emotion; they can act as a valuable tool in building rapport. If someone is perhaps angry, or very excited, or anxious – this emotion is probably going to get in the way of our discussion. Until we have in some way handled this emotion, we may not get their full concentration on what we need to find out.

•    “I can understand how that could be frustrating”
•    “I can see how that would be upsetting”
•    “You seem annoyed about something”

It gives the person the chance to vent the feelings and emotion.  Make the statement and pause for 1½ seconds for a response.  Learn to be comfortable with a little bit of silence before you have to signpost your way through it.

Verbal Nods – Imagine having a conversation with a good friend in a coffee shop and she gets to the best bit.  What do you do?  Yes you lean forward, give eye contact, nod your head, match expressions.

Yes you are showing good non verbal listening skills often called active listening.

The disadvantage of the telephone is we don’t have body language to help us listen, or show that we’re listening.  Classics such as nodding, eye contact, eye brow movement all help to show we’re listening. But without sight we have to go totally verbal.

•    “Uh hur”
•    “I see”
•    “keep going”
•    “that’s interesting”
•    “oh dear”

The list goes on and each one tells the customer that you’re listening to them. Care though you don’t use the same one as this will soon become what’s known as a “verbal tic”.

Beware the verbal tic…

The second part of this post will go live on Friday this week, be sure to check back then when Paul will be going into how to Eliminate Distractions, both internally and external, as well as a summary of the entire concept of listening effectively on the telephone.

Paul is an international speaker, trainer, author and coach based in the UK.  He specialises in rapport selling and rapport sales management and can ignite his audiences large or small.  Find out more about Paul by visiting his website www.archertraining.co.uk

If you like this post, you might like our other telesales tips:

How to Listen Effectively on a Telesales Call: Part 2 of 2

Warm Up Your Cold Calling – How to Sound GREAT On The Phone!

Softening Your Telemarketing & Telesales Questioning Techniques

The Ultimate Top Ten Telesales Tips