INKED

30Seven Keys to Effective Listening

At the strategic level, sales negotiation is like a chess game, but at the tactical level, it’s like playing poker. The parties hide their emotions behind poker faces, attempt to obscure the strength of their real hand, sometimes bluff, and keep their cards close to the vest.

The most effective way to get a peek at those cards is to keep your ears open and your mouth shut.

Listening builds deep emotional connections with other people. The more you listen, the more connected your stakeholder will feel to you. As this emotional connection deepens, their trust in you grows, and emotional walls crumble. As the walls come down, they talk more. The more they talk, the more they reveal. This gets you below the surface and lets you access their cards. Listening is where effective sales negotiators earn their stripes.

Yet, listening remains the most underappreciated and underutilized tactic in sales negotiation. Many ill-informed salespeople believe that to control the sales negotiation, they must be doing the talking. Rather than listening, they are formulating what they plan to say to convince the other party to accede to their position.

Listening is the weakest link in interactions with stakeholders at the negotiation table. We don’t listen because it is hard work. It requires empathy, cognitive focus, and a conscious effort to manage our self-centered desire to interrupt and talk over the other person.

Effective listening is the ability to actively ...