Are you really listening?

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Are you really listening?

July 24, 2008 in Brain Science, Communication, Customer Service, Negotiation, Neuroscience in Sales, Sales Skills, Value Proposition & Value Add

Ever misinterpreted or missed hearing important information which meant that you missed a vital opportunity? You’re not alone. Listening has always been, and still, one of life’s most vital skills. With so much competing for our time and attention I have found the effectiveness of mine and others’ listening skills are being increasingly challenged.

Where I notice my deficit in this area the most is when I go home after a busy day and my children want to tell me all about their day and I realise my head is still full of my work and other priorities and I am not really listening to them in the manner that I should and would like. I have made it my practice using my ‘To Do’ list to clear my mind, however, I realise that I still the need to focus on how effectively I really listen. I figured I probably wasn’t alone here hence this topic for your review.

So how well do you rate your listening skills? How accurately do you hear and interpret what others say to you? How easily are you able to break your own preoccupation with yourself and really tune into another person and what’s important to them?

Contrary to the popular myth “good sales people are good talkers”, excellent sales people are the better listeners and interpreters of other people’s information. They accurately record and reflect what the other person is saying to the point where the other person(s) feels heard, understood and respected.

I can’t stress the importance of effective listening to your success as a sales person, manager, leader, team member, parent, partner, friend or any other role you may have in your life. Listening is a vital life skill which serves you well in many situations and if not done properly you can miss many opportunities and annoy and lose people in the process.

However I find that people are often unaware that there different types of listening, not all of which are effective. If we are to truly practice effective listening we need to practice and apply Active Listening skills.

Listening is not the same as hearing. Hearing is the first part and consists of the perception of words being spoken. Listening, the second part, involves the attachment of meaning to what is being said. Passive Listening occurs when the listener has little motivation to listen carefully. Active Listening with a purpose is used to gain information, to determine how another person feels and to understand others. It requires effort on your part but the rewards are gratitude, respect and closer relationships.

Listening can be one of your most powerful communication tools!

So what are the Barriers to effective listening?

There are a number of things that can become barriers to effective listening and communication. People can build up barriers through personal insecurities or even through simple imbedding stemming from their cultural upbringing.

When it comes to listening, there are 3 levels of listening that we can exhibit.

Why not rate your current listening skills using the following checklist:

1. Marginal listening

Minimal concentration and listening.
Listener easily distracted by thoughts and fleeting impressions – leads to blank stares or inappropriate silences. This annoys the customer and causes communication barriers.
Listener plays with the message but doesn’t really hear what is being said.
Lots of room for misunderstanding
Person/ Customer feels the person serving/working/ etc. with them is not listening
This type of listening is sometimes due to lack of confidence – the person is focusing too hard on what they will say next.
Or the old pro may feel they’ve heard it all before. They may want the person / customer to hurry up so they can get on with the important stuff.

2. Evaluative listening

Second level of listening requires higher level of listening and concentration on person/ customer’s words.
Actively trying to hear what the person/ customer is saying but you’re not making an effort to understand their intent.
Instead of accepting and trying to understand the message, this listening evaluates and categorises the overall argument and concentrates on preparing a response.
Often anticipates the listener’s words and is ready with a response as soon as person / customer is finished speaking.
Most of your attention is on a response therefore you form an opinion about the person/ customer’s words before they are finished.
Risk of not accurately understanding the message being sent.

3. Active listening

Refrains from evaluating the person/ customer’s message and tries to see their point of view.
Attention not only on words spoken but also on the thoughts, feelings of the person / customer.
Requires a suspension of personal thoughts and feelings to give attention solely to listening.
Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes
Indicate to the person/ customer through verbal and nonverbal cues you are listening.
Good use of verifying, clarifying and paraphrasing.

Another good tip when practicing active listening is to take notes and use them when you a paraphrasing what the other person has said. However, all too often, I see sales people not taking notes relying only on their memory. After several meetings, no matter how alert you are, relying on your memory when you have so many other things on your agenda is a risky practice I would rather not undertake.

Taking notes combined with active listening skills is a useful, yet simple strategy that serves you very well on all levels. As I said when done properly the person you are listening to feels heard, understood and respected.

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Be Consistent & Keep Your Customers Happy

July 17, 2008 in Brand & Reputation, Collaboration, Communication, Competition, Customer Service, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Value Proposition & Value Add

One of the things that frustrate me the most as a customer is inconsistent service standards, inconsistent procedures and people’s inability to deal effectively and honourably with different types of people. If left unchecked this leads to confusion, frustration, wasted time, wasted effort, impaired brands and reputations, lost revenue and lost customers.

These issues don’t seem to be as much of an issue when you deal with very small companies because usually everyone knows what everyone else is doing and how it should be done even if it is only via word of mouth. However as businesses expand and get on board more people to work in the front line you, as the customer can’t always expect to get the same person to deal with then the challenges begin.

Here is a live example of what I mean.

I was trying to change a periodical payment amount over the phone recently normally a very simple task from my previous experiences. When I have called in the past I usually get put through to a regular group of 3-4 people who take care of our region. They have always been very helpful and pleasant to deal with. They know who I am and I enjoy speaking with them. I follow the appropriate security protocol they instructed me to use and more often than not our tasks are completed very quickly and promptly. This has been the case for over two years now. No fuss. No bother.

So when I tried to change a periodical payment to a new amount a few days ago it took three calls and 45 minutes to still get nowhere and when I tried again a few days later it took only one call and 2 minutes to rectify what I needed done in the manner I had always done it in before. What a waste! Wasted time, wasted resources, wasted relationships, etc.

Here is a summary of what happened and you’ll see what I mean:

My 1st call was taken by a young man who was very abrupt to begin with and would not give me his name when I asked for it later on in the call. I admit he did give me his name when he answered the phone however he said it so fast that I didn’t hear it so when I asked him to give it me again he said ‘I have already told you my name and I don’t have to tell you again”. In short he refused to help me with my request and behaved in a belligerent manner. I then asked to speak to his supervisor and he said, “No I will not do that”. I was at an impasse so I hung up and tried again.
My 2nd call was much more pleasant. I explained what happened with the last call and the woman (who sounded older) was very gracious and understanding however she was unable to help me with my immediate request as per my usual method as she claimed I needed to do it another way and had to get more information. So I hung up again and gathered the information needed to be prepared the next time I called. (It should be noted that I have not needed all this additional information in the past as they have it on file and I use the appropriate security information to process my tasks.) And sadly I was not able to call her back direct to carry on our discussions. I had to start back at the start with a new person all over again.
The 3rd call is too long to go into so in summary after I explained what I wanted to do as per the previous two calls, I was spoken over, interrupted, told that staff were getting sacked over not doing things properly, “I don’t want to lose my job” and that the way I had been doing things in the past (i.e. ringing up and giving my account details and security passwords to process simple tasks) was no longer valid and that I had to fill in forms and fax them through, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. And in this person’s attempt to finally empathise with me and my frustrations they said “Yes I get nasty too when I am not happy”. I sighed again and explained that at no time had I behaved in a nasty manner. Sure I was frustrated but not nasty. She had to admit this was the case and apologised for inferring otherwise. She stated she would send me a PDF to fill and fax back. More wasted time, more frustration, more inconsistencies. I gave up and went back to try to enjoy my day off.
The 4th call a few days later. I ditched the fax and did what I normally do and it was done in 2 minutes no fuss over the phone.

I have to say I was confused. I mean what is the right way to do things? The way calls 1 and 3 went were so far off the mark of effective service standards I wondered if I had walked into a comedy of errors and just a bad day at the office.

My expectations as a customer in this situation are not high at all as it was only a simple transaction that shouldn’t have taken much effort to process at all. All I expected was to receive the polite and helpful processing of my request. Calls 1 and 3 were handled so badly that they potentially ruined all the good work put in by their colleagues previously who knew better (consciously or not) how to treat customers well.

So who is to blame? I don’t know specifically in this case however I would talk to management and find out if the issue was an isolated incident or systemic. If it is systemic we need to identify the problem(s) and put in place a change process to resolve this as effectively and efficiently as possible.

So,

What are your service standards?
How do you educate and work effectively with your clients?
How do you expect your staff to interact and behave with your clients?
Does everyone know want is expected of them and how they should behave?
Are you all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet”?

While it’s easier to strike up a relationship with one person only, having to deal with multiple service people about the same common issues or procedures needs a streamlined consistent approach in procedures and tools in how to work effectively with different people. Educating customers on the right ways to work with you is very important especially if you are not going to provide them with the same person to contact each time. Customers want consistency.

For instance at BARRETT every member of our team is aware of our standard policy for Psychometric Assessment procedures and that we guarantee a 24-hour turnaround for delivery of reports once the assessment has been completed. If a client gets its within 24 hours that is an exception not the norm. Everyone in our business knows this and makes it clear to our clients especially the new ones who begin to work with us. This reduces confusion and sets clear expectations.

So if we are going to make it better for everyone concerned, customers and staff alike, we need sales and service staff to:

handle a query simply and easily
know, understand and follow due process
explain things clearly
use plain language the customer can understand
clarify and solve people’s problems
help correct any misunderstanding politely
communicate in a positive professional manner
make people feel welcome
distinguish how customers really feel
adapt their communication style with different people
handle frustrations effectively
don’t take things personally

If they can’t do this, they potentially send your customers away unhappy and maybe unwilling to come back and this will ruin your reputation, your revenue and ultimately your business.

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A view for the other side

June 26, 2008 in Brand & Reputation, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Customer Service, Negotiation, Procurement, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy

An Audience with Procurement Part 2

Following for last week’s piece on Procurement, I promised I would delve further into the view from the other side of the table and how, we, as sales people, view procurement and some of the practices which help or hinder sales and partnership effectiveness. And what our common enemy is.

So let’s take a look at the other side of the table.

Many a seasoned sales person can tell you story after story about the ‘Gunna Gunna’ customers:Gunna do this, gunna do that be it never goes anywhere.

Customers who spend very little with us but take up enormous amounts of our time or who are really nice but we know they do not have the potential to develop into long-term revenue generating accounts for our business in effect, keep us from working with customers where we can get a better return on investment.

And the cost of the sales effort escalates.

Fit sales organisations are really looking at the viability and potential of customers and whether they are worthwhile working or not.

Fit Sales Organisations segment their customers and their markets and then work out the most cost-effective way to sell and service these customers or not as the case may be. We have to work our what it cost us to get a sale.

Depending on the industry, it can costs an in-field sales person and their company anywhere from $1000 to $1,500 per client sales meeting (that’s taking into account things like the cost of travel and time in the meeting – approx. 1 hour). Given this cost we want to be very discerning about;

(a) how long it took us to get a customer on board and
(b) about the value and potential of the customer could give our business

What we are guarding against is trying to sell to those customers who do not and never will meet our criteria for high potential and high value.

In sales it is just as important to know when to say no and walk away. It’s about how you use your time and effort.

I am sure you are aware that today business is a 2-way street and while customer have often been in the drivers seat around choice of supplier the balance of power is being readdressed and shifted to a more partnership arrangement .

Suppliers are now weighing up their options as well. For instance before we accept an RFP (request for proposal) or Client Brief many of us weigh up is it worth it working with that organisation or not?

Personally I believe that Procurement is a public relations exercise.

Goods sales organisation will weigh up the cost of getting the sale. If your procurement process portrays your organisation as smart, easy-to-deal-with, enlightened, focused and disciplined and you fit our criteria for potential and value then we will put in the effort to work with you. If not then we will often go else where for better quality sales. Unless we are working in a very limited market we often have many customers to chose from in this global economy.

Making procurement processes too hard or unnecessarily complicated may limit a businesses from accessing the very tools, products, systems or advice they so desperately need.

For instance some of the recent e-procurement experiences I have had have been less than favourable. Meaning they failed to do the job. And wasted a lot of time, money and effort. Time, money and effort we could have been investing in better sales opportunities.

Just because a big company has a name doesn’t necessarily mean we want to work with them.

What good sales people would like is to be given a chance work with people in partnership not competition.

For all the “us’ versus ‘them’ that gets said about sales and procurement, we should all recognise the common enemy

Isn’t men against women or
Sales people against procurement people

The common enemy is WASTE.

Wasted resources
Wasted time,
Wasted relationships
Wasted opportunity
Wasted ideas

That is why I am finding more and more people saying they want to work with others (suppliers, partners and customers) in a spirit of cooperation, consultation and respect not competition or deceit. This personal insight and awareness makes for much better business relationships and much better business results for all concerned.

As the Buddhist saying goes: Without the cooperation and kindness of others we cannot exist.

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First Impressions

June 12, 2008 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Customer Service, Emotional Intelligence, Ethics & Values, Networking, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Value Proposition & Value Add

Picking up from my recent posting We’ll meet again… I thought it would be worth looking at how First Impressions can impact our opinions of other people and their opinions of us. In turn first impressions can affect the desire to work together or not. Have you ever regretted a time when you didn’t make a favourable first impression? Did you wish you could have your time over again to make a more positive impression? I am sure you are not alone. We can all think of a time when we messed up. As the old saying goes: ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression’.

According to one university study*, people make eleven decisions about us in the first seven seconds of contact.

They are:

1. Education Level
2. Economic Level
3. Perceived Credibility, Believability, Competence and Honesty
4. Trustworthiness
5. Level of Sophistication
6. Sex Role Identification
7. Level of Success
8. Political Background
9. Religious Background
10. Ethnic Background
11. Social/ Professional / Sexual Desirability
(*Source: Michael Solomon, PhD, Psychologist, Chairman, Marketing Department Graduate School of Business, NYU.)

And then according to this study the rest of your time is spent finding evidence to prove your original impression of that person, whether that impression is true or not. This study emphasises the importance of creating good first impressions.

Here is an interesting exercise to test the impact of making a good impression:

Check out the next 10 places where you spend your money, whether in person or on the phone, and see how effectively the people you come in contact with make a favourable impression with you.
Notice how you are greeted when you call or go into a business or are contacted by its employees.
How effective are they in creating a favourable and positive impression with you?
Do they pay attention to you and treat you, as you would like to be treated?
How do you and your team make good first impressions?

Not everyone knows how to make a good impression. Many people are often too preoccupied with themselves to pay due attention to you. And many people forget about using common courtesies that could make all the difference when communicating with you. Common courtesy, sadly, isn’t so common any more. So here are some tips on making a good first impression:

Tune your world out and them in – really listen and pay attention to what they say and do.
Think about what you can learn about them and in turn what you can learn about yourself by interacting with them.
Think, “There is something about you I like” especially if they are very different from you.
Whenever someone treats you kindly, show your appreciation, express your gratitude, and offer your thanks.
Scatter the dark clouds of gloom and spread sunshine with your smile. Remember, a smile is a curved line that can straighten many problems.

I hope this goes some way in helping you and your team make positive first impressions with those people you interact whether it be in business or on a personal level.

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The relationship of revenue growth to your job?

May 29, 2008 in Customer Service, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Leadership, Value Proposition & Value Add, Vision, Mission & Purpose

Every sales person knows the relationship of prospecting to sales is critical. Without prospecting you are not likely to get a sale. We all know the relationship of sales to revenue growth is high. But how many people in your company know the relationship of revenue growth to their specific job?

The sales people do. Owners do. They think about it every day.

Yet many people not working directly with customers don’t often think about how their roles impact sales and revenue growth. Even in some customer service teams they don’t realise the connection either. How many sales leads or up-selling or cross-selling opportunities pass them by?

If I had my way everyone in every business would know their line of sight to the customer. Everyone would have sales and service key performance indicators in their job description and performance expectations. Everyone would know how their job impacts on revenue and profit growth. And everyone would know what a sales opportunity looks like so they could spot them and capture them for your business.

Here’s the test. If I came into your business and interviewed everyone separately what answers would you expect from each of your people to the following questions?

How does your organisation generate revenue?
Who pays this revenue to you?
Why do your customers choose to do business with you?
What is your role and who do you support in causing customer satisfaction?
How does your position or job function impact the profitability of your organisation?
How does your position or job function impact customer satisfaction?
How does your position or job function impact sales?
What are your Standards of Service?
What is your own purpose statement?

If you do not know what a purpose statement look like here is an example:

“I’m in business to support and fulfill my customers’ needs, help create an enjoyable work environment and help my organisation operate ethically and profitably.”

Knowing what business you are in and what you stand for is very important to generating revenue growth in business whether you are in the front line or back office.

Take the test and see what happens. At your next meeting or interaction ask your people these questions and see what they have to say.

Let me know what you find, I’d be keen to hear from you.
You can reach me via this form.

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