How to Be a Good Listener

On this special episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, Sales Gravy Senior Master Sales Trainer Brad Adams and bestselling author of Coffee's for Closers, Tony Morris, dive into the art of great discovery, how to ask questions that build rapport and create engagement, and why better questions set the groundwork for better results. Podcast Takeaways The ability to listen actively and conduct effective discovery is the most important skill for salespeople. Authentic engagement is a direct result of great discovery, which is not possible without deep and active listening. Autopilot is the reason why many salespeople struggle to ask the right questions during the discovery call. Before every discovery call, salespeople should establish a clear desired outcome, create a list of criteria to frame questions, and prepare to lead prospects through the process. There are five questions that salespeople should ask in every discovery call, including tag on questions, statement questions, replay questions, clarification questions, and future questions. By seeing the world through customers' eyes, salespeople can achieve authentic engagement and effective discovery. Great Discovery Is A Sales Superpower The two biggest priorities for salespeople are building pipeline through prospecting and discovery. Not expert negotiation, perfect presentation skills, or even closing. Those steps are integral to the sales process, but not as fundamentally critical as getting in front of as many potential clients as possible, and authentically engaging with as many of them as you can. Authentic engagement is the result of great discovery, and you can't conduct bulletproof discovery without deep and active listening. The Biggest Mistake You Can Make In Sales Listening is one of the most vital skills that a salesperson can hone and develop. Failure to really listen to your prospect, especially on a discovery call, only sets you up to make more mistakes later on in the sales process, causing you to risk jeopardizing the opportunity. In discovery conversations, if you're talking more than your prospect, you are reducing your likelihood of effectively connecting with and engaging them. Don't just listen to respond, listen to learn. Additionally, it's difficult to do effective discovery without the right questions, and without listening to your prospect, you will ask terrible questions. If there's one thing that will doom an opportunity before it even picks up speed is wasting your and your prospect's time on the wrong questions. Derailing the focus of the conversation with surface level questions, or misinterpreting your prospect's answers because you're too busy thinking of a response to actually listen, will only make your job harder and your prospect feel ignored. Autopilot Is Killing Your Discovery Process One of the reasons that many salespeople struggle to ask the right questions during the discovery call is that they run on autopilot. This is a serious problem because instead of approaching the discovery call with proper preparation, confidence, and awareness, they ask questions without thinking about what they're asking. And as we know, asking bad questions will reap poor results. Luckily, the solution to this is preparing before every discovery call. Here are three steps you can take before your next conversation to ensure that you are ready to conduct great discovery. Establish a clear desired outcome. What are you aiming towards? Is it to set up a demo, meeting, presentation, or is it to make a sale? Have a clear, defined outcome for the conversation, before you even get started. This will help you to get the most value out of the conversation while staying on the right track. Create a list of criteria to frame your questions. What are the key criteria you need to know by the end of the conversation in order to set the deal up for success? Before a call,