Tweet

When Agreement is Really Disagreement - Happy Ears for Salespeople

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: Happy Ears or Effective Salespeople? It all comes down to training, coaching, observation skills, commitment and practice. When put that way, there is as much burdon on you as there is on your salespeople. Are you up for this challenge?

When Agreement is Really Disagreement - Happy Ears for Salespeople

Your salesperson asks his prospect a question like, "Does that make sense?" and his prospect replies, "Sure." Feeling relieved that his explanation was successful, your salesperson moves on, an unwitting participant in what will become a huge surprise to him. Why will it be a surprise?

Your salesperson had happy ears - he heard what he wanted to hear and missed the accompanying signals that should have alerted him to the fact that he got lip service rather than the truth.

Perhaps you're thinking, "but my people sell on the phone, not face to face, so how will they be able to see it?"

They must listen - and listen for what's not said as much as for what is said. In a scenario like the one I described above, they can simply push back a little by saying, "I know you said, 'sure' but I had the feeling that you didn't really mean 'sure'."

That's when the prospect will admit that he wasn't really comfortable with the explanation, didn't completely understand how it would help, didn't really see the need for that one benefit, and isn't impressed - yet. And his resistance goes up. By the way, click here for a great explanation of resistance on Rick Roberge's Blog.

So two things can happen. Your salespeople can sail through their discussions, hear what they want to hear, believe they have a strong opportunity and never quite understand why it doesn't close. Or, they can stop, push back, and help their prospects communicate the real issue. Then they will have a chance to deal with it while the prospect can still remember what the problem is.

Happy Ears or Effective Salespeople? It all comes down to training, coaching, observation skills, commitment and practice. When put that way, there is as much burdon on you as there is on your salespeople. Are you up for this challenge?

Related Articles
  How Many of Your Salespeople are Addicted to This?
  2nd of the 10 Kurlan Sales Competencies that are Key to Building a Sales Culture
  5 Steps to Coaching Your Salespeople Beyond Happy Ears
  Happy Ears or an Empty Pipeline?
  Sales Experts Disagree on the Right Way to Train Salespeople
  What Buyers Hate About Sellers
  Real Live Coaching Call - Coaching a Salesperson
  Real Live Coaching Call - Coaching Salespeople
  10 Kurlan Sales Competencies That are Key to Building a Sales Culture
  How Does the Secret of Happiness Affect Sales Motivation
  Topgrading Pros, Cons, and Sales Assessments
  Stress-Free Selling® - Close Three Times Faster
  1st of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
  Performance Review Disagreements
  Dealing with Performance Review Disagreements
  How To Close the Big Sales That Are So Difficult To Close
  Disagreement and Disrespect
  Be A Proud Sales Professional
  The Enemy in Sales
  Listening Pays !!!

Article Tags: benefit, blog, br, ears, lip service, observation skills, prospects, roberge, sales resistance, salespeople, salesperson, signals, surprise, training coaching, truth, unwitting participant



Related Forum Posts
Franchising & Licensing Can Be The Same Thing - FTC Rule 436 defines franchising as anyone offering an Agreement that contains these 3 things: 1. Licensing a "Mark" - which can be a trade name, service mark, commercial symbol, slogan, etc. 2. In the body of the Agreement, there contains, significant controls and assistance. 3. The licensee is paying the licensor in excess of $500 within the first six months of the actual offering of the business. Licensing and Franchising can mean the same thing today. If you do not decide to franchise and comply with FTC Rule 436, you may be in violation of Business Opportunity Laws that exist in 24 individual States.
Non-Disclosure Agreement - How should I decide who to get to sign my Non-Disclosure Agreement or not? Is it worth having? I'm worried that people won't want to help if I make them sign the NDA.
Not much idea about ITE today - Thanks, I don't know why but that's the kind of response I expected - I replied to their TV ad I saw a few weeks ago and received their info pack. I took the "Disclosure Agreement' to a patent attorney and he quickly pointed out that there was no space for their signature anywhere on the form, so I quizzed them about it and I was told that they would send me a signed DA, but I'm still waiting... I think I'll give them a miss now, in fact I've just this morning come across the Trevor Bayliss Brands site myself and sent off their DA so I'll wait and see what happens.
I am looking for a Mentor who is a Successful Restauranteur - Hi Evans, An idea for a forum that would be niche focused. My goal is wanting to acquire the expertise of running a highly successful restaurant. Like building any great business I think it would be great if there was One Umbrella resource underwhich I could find a highly successful restauranteur who would be willing to be a Mentor for building a successful restaurant business. A lawyer who understands business and specializes in the restaurant industry and more importantly who would not charge by the hour, But instead on as per completion of a contract basis. A competent CPA/CA who specializes in restaurants and who would be able to offer the right advice in maximzing revenues within the confines of legal parameters. A competent commercial real estate agent who specializes in restaurants and who would assist and advise on acquiring the right locations and also assist in negotiating the Term of Offer Clauses in the Lease Agreement. A competent Tax professional who would advise on maximizing revenues within the confines of legal parameters.
Re: This ones a winner - [quote="sboggs":2af4gk8a]I want to start a networking website where users send info to each other and (without spelling out my idea) users do things that the majority of americans love to do, as of lately....[/quote:2af4gk8a] Hi Steve, You have good idea and to develop social networking site let me put some fact about current situation I am programmer and working since last 8 years in this field so this is my opinion. -In market now days number of social networking sites if you have specific idea than keep with you and don’t disclose until you finalize your development team and get NDA (Non-Discloser Agreement) signed from the development team. -What are you going to build website just search that others is on same platform and if you found anyone just compare your features what you will provide for your site and make some more features which is not in current one. -Get some knowledge for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to recognize your site by all search engines and its necessary your site should be done with SEO friendly to get more traffic on site. -Plan how will get earn from website from where you will get ads to put on site and where you will put these ads on site so you will get idea how it will make profit I know you have good idea and you had prepared for this also but just mentioning here to know others guys too -: ) -Decide which latest tools and technology you want to use in your site so it will ne less cost and it will help to reduce cost to running it. As I can say you should use PHP + MYSQL + AJAX its open source and free. -The cost of development 20k is too much but actual cost will come to know when you mention all requirements specification in front of website designer and as per my opinion this will cost around you 5k but as I told you its based on tools and technology used in site and website requirements. -I am running software development / website design and development / mobile application development company with 25 employee We had done number of dynamic website with database driven contents and more in past and if you need more help let me know I will help you more.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Do You Pretend To Listen To People?

3 Competencies of Leadership

Work at home Opportunities for the Disabled

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.