I don’t know about you but when I was a kid, parent-teacher conferences were the worst moments of my life. Why did I hate conferences? Well, because I was a class clown, and a teacher’s nightmare. On top of that my Mom forced me to go to these “interventions” and hear what a bad kid I was. My mom was always anxiously waiting to hear something more than, “Chris has the potential to be an A or B student, if he would just apply himself.” I semi-straightened out around my sophomore year when I sat in my guidance counselor’s office and she painted what sounded like a very grim future for me. She recommended that I move into a college prep English class because she felt that I needed to be challenged. In that class I was definitely challenged. I realized that my joking had set me back behind my peers and I needed to make a change. It was hard, and my teacher was always pointing me out in class and speaking with me afterwards about my behavior. I actually felt the investment that she was making in me and didn’t want to let her down. She would say to me, “Chris, you have one mouth and two ears for a reason! You need to start listening.” She was right. I started to listen and pay attention. It wasn’t an overnight change but it was an important start. I made my first speech in that class and the seeds of confidence were planted in me.
After college I became a youth pastor. In my ministry I learned to listen before I gave my opinion and listening served me well. I learned that people will only share what is important to them to the people that they trust. I wanted to be a person that was trustworthy so that I could support people who needed help. Listening became my most important tool in ministry.
After the economy changed I was laid off and had to find something else to make a living. A friend shared an opportunity to sell final expense life insurance and I thought I would give it a shot. I never really sold anything before I stepped out of my ministry role. I had this misconception that sales was all about talking people into doing something that they didn’t want to do. As I grew in my sales career it didn’t take long for me to realize that listening, I mean really listening to people was just as important in sales as it was in ministry. I want to share a few thoughts with you about listening in your sales career that I hope will serve you well.
What do you think is more important when you listen; your ability to listen, or your desire to listen?
Listening may seem to come more natural to some people than it does to others, but the common denominator for all good listeners is their desire to listen. Desire trumps ability every time. In his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Steven Covey encourages to seek first to understand others before we focus on being understood. It takes empathic listening to understand what someone else is trying to communicate. This requires paying attention to verbal and non-verbal communication, asking good questions, and not thinking about your commission. Covey also warns us to avoid fake listening. Fake listening looks like this:
- Ignoring – not really listening at all
- Pretending – humming along without really following
- Selective Hearing – hearing what you want to hear
Once I was training a new agent and we sat with a gentleman who recently lost his daughter in a car accident. It had only been a couple of months since she passed. I looked on the coffee table and there was a candle with her picture on it with her birthdate and the day she passed. He was very close with her and missed her dearly. The new agent heard him talk about his daughter passing and moved right along with the presentation, glossing over what was most important to him. I stopped the presentation and acknowledged his loss and asked him some questions. It was the right thing to do, and it was important for him to be able to share with someone. This is empathetic listening. When we got back to the car I asked the new agent why he didn’t stop and listen to what was important to the client. He said he was nervous and he didn’t want to mess up the presentation. We have all been there. What he didn’t know when we were sitting with the client was that he was putting the presentation first and when you put the presentation first you always put the client last. You have to listen, and you will listen when you have a real desire to get to know the people that you are meeting.
If you will let people talk they will talk
Don’t interrupt or talk over people. This may seem obvious, but it is a real challenge for some people. If you are always talking you will not only make your client angry but you will miss some important details about your clients. They might have some important things to share about their kids or what they really need, but they can’t because you keep jumping in. Many of new agents are afraid of silence. Silence is your friend. I cannot tell you how many times I sat for a moment in silence after a client finished what they were saying and after the pause they started sharing some really important information. If you want to be successful in sales you will need to set aside your ego and let the conversation flow.
Data is everything
Ask good questions! Information is power. The reason Facebook is so successful is because they know so much about us. We think that it is a great place to reach out to our friends and post selfies with kittens, but Facebook knows better. They gather data about everything in our lives. They measure keywords, clicks, likes, and shares. What do they do with that data? They allow marketers to access data to create an audience to sell their products or services to. They have built a multi-billion-dollar business on knowing everything about you. This proves to us in sales that it might be a good idea to know as much as we can about our clients. Asking good questions is the best way to do that. In my information gathering stage I like to ask three to four layers of questions so that I get a full picture of the client’s situation and what they need. Ask detailed questions about their kids and grandkids. Practice if you are bad at asking questions. Ask your parents or grandparents about what it was like when they were growing up or about some experiences that maybe they never shared with you. I promise that if you do practice asking questions with your family that you will learn somethings and deepen your relationship with them. You will do the same with your clients.
Tune out the noise
Sometimes when I walk into a home it can be quite loud. Seniors can listen to their TV’s loudly, and I cannot tell you how many times I have been attacked by a pack of chihuahuas. You need to take control of the situation. It is okay to grab the remote and turn the TV down. It is okay to ask them to put the dogs outside or in a room so that you can talk. One time I walked into a home and a woman’s grandchildren were playing a loud shooter video game. I asked the kids to leave so that I could speak to their grandmother for a few minutes. Do you know what they did? They got up and left the room so that we could talk. It is important to take control of the noise in the room. It is very important to me because I need the silence to measure the emotional temperature of the room. I also need the silence to focus and hear what is really being communicated.
I also want to take a moment and talk about a different kind of noise. If you are in commission sales you know that there can be a lot of pressure. There can be home pressure and financial pressure. You can be out for a week and not close a sale. All of these things carry emotional weight. A lot of new agents do not know what to do with this emotional weight and they carry it into their appointment with them. Clients can feel that emotional weight. If you carry it into the room with you it will create a noise in the room. Not a real noise but you will not be relaxed and it will affect your sit. You have to find a way to shut that noise off too. The best way to do that is to mentally place it in a box when you leave for work. Just mentally set it aside before you even start. It will be there when you get back, but if you are going in the sales field put it in the box. Turn off that noise so that you are dialed in and focused on every word that your client says.
The Golden Rule
My Mom always taught me to treat people the way that I wanted to be treated. It took a long time before I actually put this rule into practice but when I did actually start caring about other people it made all the difference. Put yourself in an average final expense clients shoes for a moment: It seems like life hasn’t gone your way. Your kids have all grown and started their own lives. The only sound in the place is the ticking clock or the game show network. Your life has come down to one day, when you get your social security deposit. A stranger knocks on the door. You usually don’t let them in but he looks friendly enough. He sits down, tells you that you have a nice place, and immediately starts selling you something. If that is me, I’m thinking all this guy is interested in is getting my social security money. A lot of people are reduced to a number in their senior years. They sit in their homes waiting for the clock to stop ticking.
What if we approached sales to seniors differently? What if we made an intentional effort to really listen to who they are and what is going on in their lives? What if we took a moment each day to focus on being a difference maker? What if we surprised people who let us in by not selling, but by actually caring about them as individuals, as people who need someone to listen. When you walk into a house, do you hear what I hear? I hope so, because if you do you have the real opportunity to restore dignity and humanity to some lonely people. So, I encourage you to remember the words of Mrs. Gibbs, “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.” If you can listen and treat people like you want to be treated you will sell more and make the world a better place as you do it.