Listening While You Work

by Tom Hopkins

For most salespeople, listening just isn't the natural way to spend most of their time. Too bad, because the more you listen, the more you earn! If you doubt this, consider that many psychologists earn $95 or more per hour to listen to the challenges people face. Of course, they're providing solutions as well, but aren't you supposed to do that, too? Here are some interesting statistics that should greatly influence your desire to become a good listener.

• Good communicators spend at least 40% of their time listening.

Contrary to what you may think, during our entire formal educational experience, less then one year is devoted to learning how to listen. That's one year total, which in reality is only a few minutes here and there interspersed in 12 to 16 years of education.

• Approximately 35% of a good communicator's time is spend talking.

The time in school given to developing good speaking skills is, on average, only two years.

• About 16% of our time is spent reading.

Six to eight years are spent learning how to read.

• About 9% of our communication skills is spent writing.

Twelve years are spent learning how to write.

What do these statistics tell you? We spend a lot of time learning to do best what we will eventually use the least. As a sales professional, you should spend about 30% of your time talking and 30% prospecting, doing research, and preparing presentations. Notice that I said 30% talking. For many salespeople, talking less goes against the grain of what they really do. To help you remember and stick to this advice, think about the proportion of ears to mouth in the human being. We have twice as many ears as mouths, right? Use them in that proportion if you want to succeed.

You can't begin to make up for all that lost time in school, where learning effective listening skills was pushed under the carpet and believed by many to be a minor skill. You can, however, become more aware of the level of listener you are and what pitfalls may await you unless you change your ways. The great thing about changing your listening habits is that you can begin immediately and practice very day without people ever knowing what you're doing. Becoming a good listener is definitely a learned process.

Adapted from Sales Closing for Dummies © 1998 by Tom Hopkins International, Inc.