Just as it doesn’t matter what we say, it matters what our prospect hears, how we listen to our prospect while determine whether we succeed in getting paid on the information we gather instead of going into knowing mode and presuming a sale when none may exist.
Without straying too far into cliché territory, we miss out on vital information from our prospect when we’re waiting for them to stop talking.
In particular, we miss out on our prospect’s tonality, which can make “yeah, sure” said in a flat tone sound like “YEAH, SURE!” when we’re half-listening through “hopium” filled ears.
We also tend to miss out on our prospect dodging our question with an answer like, “well, we’d like something implemented by summer” in response to “when we’re you hoping to have a solution implemented?” When we aren’t listening, we translate our prospect’s non-answer into “they’re going to buy from me and I’ll get this in my Q2 numbers,” yet we don’t have any clarity on what kind of “something” they want implemented when in the “summer” they want the “something” implemented and why do they a) need “something” and b) have it implemented by summer.
A key reason why we miss out on those pieces of information is we are, as David Sandler said, attached to the outcome (closing a sale) instead of the process (of qualifying a prospect by attempting to disqualify them).
It is easier to stay attached to the process when we have one, we plan our conversations with our prospects, debrief those conversations and rehearse prior to visiting with our prospect. With those elements in place, we are likely to stay to our true path instead of defaulting down the comfortable path, which typically ends in heartache and tears (and a false opportunity hanging around our funnel).
Until next time… go sell something.
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