{"id":2515,"date":"2017-04-06T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/?p=2515"},"modified":"2019-04-03T09:43:16","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T13:43:16","slug":"thoughtful-thursdays-be-a-better-listener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/06\/thoughtful-thursdays-be-a-better-listener\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughtful Thursdays &#8211; Be a better listener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A recent buying experience&nbsp;demonstrated&nbsp;the importance of listening&nbsp;to your customer and learning from what they do not say. It reminded me of a post from several years ago that remains valid today.&nbsp;A&nbsp;few additional&nbsp;thoughts have been added&nbsp;to the original post.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe most important thing in communication is to hear what isn\u2019t being said.\u201d Peter Drucker.<\/p>\n<p>These are wise words to be sure.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Hearing\u2019 what is not being said is a skill&nbsp;you can&nbsp;develop.<\/p>\n<p>So how does one develop this skill?&nbsp; We all do it to a certain extent already, and might not realize it.<\/p>\n<p>It involves the processing of data. Take what is said, and ask yourself what it means. By determining&nbsp;insights to the information you begin to hear what is not being said. One of the keys is to develop good listening skills.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don\u2019t interrupt<\/li>\n<li>Give them your undivided attention<\/li>\n<li>Be focused on the speaker&nbsp;\u2013 do not let yourself be distracted<\/li>\n<li>Note key points of discussion<\/li>\n<li>Ask for clarification when unclear about what has been said \u2013 leave nothing to chance<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For example, when a customer says they cannot afford your prices, what might they really mean? Perhaps they can afford it, but they are experiencing cash flow difficulties and a payment plan is a viable option. Maybe it is timing, not affordability that is the barrier.<\/p>\n<p>Improve your listening skills and&nbsp;you will by default become better at hearing what is not being said.<\/p>\n<p>Good selling,<br \/>\nRichard<\/p>\n<p>Have a question about sales? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sakanashiandassociates.com\/contact\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Contact Sakanashi and Associates Inc.<\/a> and I will respond.<\/p>\n<p>Please share Thoughtful Thursdays posts with people you feel may find the topic interesting and help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent buying experience&nbsp;demonstrated&nbsp;the importance of listening&nbsp;to your customer and learning from what they do not say. It reminded me of a post from several years ago that remains valid today.&nbsp;A&nbsp;few additional&nbsp;thoughts have been added&nbsp;to&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/06\/thoughtful-thursdays-be-a-better-listener\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,5,8,3],"tags":[60,35,47,73],"class_list":["post-2515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales","category-sales-tips","category-selling-skills","category-thoughtful-thursdays","tag-sales-2","tag-sales-tips-2","tag-selling-skills-2","tag-thoughtful-thursdays"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2515"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3685,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions\/3685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sakanashiandassociates.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}