The idea that a contact who pays attention and listens to us during a sales call isn’t really a prospect seems counterintuitive to many salespeople. Isn’t it a good thing when someone listens closely to what we have to say during that meeting?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Think about it. In that situation, who’s doing the talking? Us, of course. And if we’re running our mouth 90% of the time during a sales call, and the other person is doing all the listening, they’re not engaging. That means we don’t learn anything. When we’re doing the talking, we aren’t getting the information we need to understand their issues. In that situation, what’s really happening is that we’re just “showing up and throwing up.” We’re delivering a monologue about our product knowledge, our corporate history, or all the other clients we’ve worked with and how much they love us.
Who cares?
That monologue is keeping us from uncovering what we need to know about this buyer’s issues. We already know what’s important to us. We need to find out
what’s important to them.
If we are serious about doing that, it helps to remember that we’ve been given two ears and one mouth. Our goal should be to use those tools in the proportion that they were given to us. That means the prospect should be talking at least 70% of the time, and we should be talking no more than 30% of the time.
Sales is a conversation, which means both sides should be interacting. It’s not a monologue. We should never monopolize the floor. We want to ensure there is a back-and-forth in the discussion. We want to put our attention and our focus primarily onto the other person – not onto ourselves, our company, or our stuff. And as we lead that conversation – not dominate, but lead – we always want to steer it toward their world and (in a B-to-B sales call) their business.
- What are their big new projects?
- What markets are they reaching?
- What markets do they wish they could reach?
- What are the biggest challenges their organizations are facing?
- How are they dealing with those challenges?
- What do they see on the horizon?
When we make the conversation all about the prospective buyer’s business, the result is a much more rewarding interaction for both sides. This kind of talk is
perceived by some salespeople as being a more difficult conversation to sustain, simply because it’s a less predictable conversation. What those salespeople are really saying, though, is that they don’t feel like going outside their own comfort zones.
Have you ever been on a bad first date? Think about what that was like. Usually, a bad date happens because the other person is talking about themselves the whole time, telling you what their day was like, what their opinions are, and what their life is like, without ever asking you a question about what’s going on in your world. You don’t even get to talk. Pretty soon, you just give up. The waiter shows up when you’re done eating and offers coffee, and you say, “No, thanks.” You can’t get out of the restaurant fast enough.
Now think of what an awesome date is like. You’re learning about each other. You’re each asking questions. You’re comfortable with each other. There’s a lot of back-and-forth. You can tell the other person is genuinely interested in you. That’s what we want a sales call to be like.
So, do we want the prospect to listen? Of course… but we want them to talk more than they listen. If we make them do all or most of the listening, they’re going to leave the restaurant (as it were). Then, there’s no prospect there at all.
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