I came across this quote this other day ‘Stop selling start helping' by Zig Ziglar and was reminded of a classic sales missed opportunity which occurred in my previous life in retail management. Ok picture this……

At long last you've been given the start date for the work to fit your new kitchen – new units, new worktops and a new cooker – hurrah! You found ‘the one' in your local electrical superstore when you bought an iron a couple of months ago – a sleek and sparkly range cooker with 6 rings…oh joy! The day has arrived – the day of the ordering of the cooker.

You arrive at the Superstore and head directly for the cooker department – there it is – oh how marvellous! A sales assistant appears….. what follows is a summary of the conversation - Are you all right there? Oh yes – a couple of things - I bought this iron 3 months ago and its faulty – so I need a new one, also I'd like to order this cooker please …………….. – oh no - I don't deal with replacements – that's not me - you need to call our servicing department the number is 12345.

All a bit strange, don't they just replace small appliances? However, you go outside the store and duly call to report the faulty iron as requested. The call is answered with complete incredulity – oh no- we don't send engineers out to attend irons madam - you need to go back to the store for a replacement. I guess the conclusion to this event wont surprise you – yes the iron was replaced and no, the store didn't win the sale for the cooker!

So what is going on here? What factors resulted in the action taken? The words heard - faulty, assumptions made that the customer had a faulty cooker as they were stood in the cooker department, reactive behaviour, a fear of dealing with a problem, a lack of empathy, the list could go on - but what I keep coming back to are poor listening skills combined with a lack of desire and ownership to help solve a problem – is that not what we do in sales – identify/create need and offer solutions to overcome and take away pain?

I was once asked to consider the following question – of all the sales skills which one did I consider to be the most important? My immediate response was active listening skills. Of course you need passion, belief, knowledge of your product and your customer, ability to build rapport, and great questioning techniques in abundance - but active listening – simply has to be top of the pops. How can you create rapport without listening to the responses, and what is the purpose of asking great questions to identify need, if you don't listen to the answers given?

Most of us fully appreciate that good listening is crucial to effective communication and career success. The differences between hearing and listening are well documented as are the solutions and yet studies show that only 10% of us listen properly. So why is that? Is it simply the fact that in order to become a great listener it is necessary to put our own inner thoughts, agenda and needs on hold as we entirely focus on the needs of another?

Try this exercise …..Close your eyes and count 1-50 – focus only on the count….what can you hear, what are you thinking about?

In these days of competition, pressure on performance, cost margins the really scary thing is how many missed sales opportunities happen every day?? We are all customers and I'm sure we could all think of times when we have walked out of a store as a result of sales staff simply not making us feel loved. Surely if continue to put our sales staff in front of our customers without the appropriate skills and a desire to listen - we will continue to loose sales.

I believe we owe it to our people and more importantly our prospective customers to create a sales environment which develops active listening skills as an absolute must together with fostering a genuine interest and desire to help customers solve problems. The results may be surprising!

And finally …..learn to be a great listener and people will think you are great!!!

Caroline Brake

January 2008