Allows the other person to speak more
Almost everyone defends their ideals in order to convince and try to change the way of thinking of others. Do you think this is a good strategy to attract the trust of a future client? Not knowing how to listen is the reason why many good professional opportunities are lost. When you do not stop talking and communication is unidirectional, you rob the other person of the possibility of expressing their ideas and needs.
You’re about to walk into a meeting or contact a potential customer behind cold doors. You feel like the boxers before entering the ring. You need to prepare yourself mentally, stretch your joints and breathe deeply to temper yourself and feel comfortable with yourself. ‘Safety is everything,’ you think, so you’ve prepared a devastating strategy – go in ‘hard’ and don’t let them think.
You are ready and the time has come to demonstrate your business skills. You start the conversation as you had planned from the beginning, in a hurry and without hesitation. You think that, if your interlocutor thinks or has time to give his opinion, you will lose his attention, so you interrupt him at the slightest opportunity and continue with your dissertation.
What do you think will be the outcome of this meeting? Exactly! A few minutes later, your potential customer, exhausted and distrustful, slams the door in your face. Can’t you explain it? It is very simple to understand, you are simply following an obsolete sales technique. If you had known how to listen to your potential customer, you could have closed a very advantageous deal, but since you tried to impose your criteria and dominate their thinking, you lost their interest and their respect. The result? Your former target customer has become a potential customer for your competitor.
As you can see, talking too much is never a good thing, in fact, it is a common and very important mistake that must be corrected in order to bring all negotiations to a successful conclusion. Dale Carnegie, in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People, advised: “Let the other person do the talking. They know more than we do about their business and their problems. Let’s ask them questions. Let them explain a few things to us.
Allowing the other person to speak does not take away from your reason; on the contrary, it gives you the option to understand what you don’t know about your prospective client and helps you redirect your response based on the person’s interests. At the same time, this technique ensures that your interlocutor maintains his personal security and is willing to change his mind if you know how to make him say “yes, yes”.
Never interrupt him. Gale said that our potential customer “will not pay attention to us while he still has a number of ideas of his own that demand expression”. Therefore, let him express himself freely, let him think he is in control, but do not allow him to dominate the conversation. Lead her with the right questions and show agreement on the points you have in common. At the end of your meeting you will have convinced him, although your client will think it was his idea to take advantage of your service.
