"Where do you think you lost the prospect?"

...I asked an AE during a recent coaching session.

We played the call back.

Again they didn't pick up on it...this was the third playback.

I flagged it up...

"Oh... yeah right! Not sure how I missed that."

Selling is hard.

Responding in real time & stopping yourself from reacting in the moment is a real skill & takes serious practice.

We're human beings. We're emotional.

Even when listening back it can be tough for a salesperson to be objective and to really 'hear' what's going on.

We're all so focused on ourselves that we often miss the obvious.

And if we can't pick up on clues when playing calls back, then what chance do we have during live conversations?

Firstly, we need to know exactly what we're looking for.

As a trained actor, 20+ years in sales / 7+ years coaching, I've become very attuned to the signs someone is becoming disengaged.

It's what I do day-in/day-out and so I've developed an acute awareness, built the muscle over time.

I used to be terrible, but through obsessive practice and relentless introspection - I've become acutely aware of both verbal & non verbal cues.

And it's absolutely critical in sales, because if you can pick up on these signs you can...

a - re-steer the conversation to get it back on track

b - ask better questions to reignite the discussion

c - call the elephant in the room (in an assertive & tactful way) to ensure full transparency and to demonstrate your ability to 'tune in' to the other person by showing courage & in some cases vulnerability

Most salespeople just soldier on during their meetings without so much as a thought for what is 'really' going on beneath the surface.

I know - because I spent years doing the exact same thing.

Talking too much, selling too hard, force feeding benefits, persuading, answering all questions to demonstrate how 'credible' I was.

It's what most salespeople still do.

And it's killing their earning potential...not to mention their company's bottom line.

Just ask your average salesperson how good they are at listening or reading the room & they'll say something along the lines of 'pretty good.'

They're not.

Tumbleweed blows at the other end of the zoom call as they proceed to steamroll the prospect through an awkward, painful demo.

I've been on demos, that by contrast would make a root canal seem like a pleasurable experience.

It's a process however & like anything you want to master, you have to go through the 4 stages of learning...

1. Unconscious incompetence - you don't know what you dont know

2. Conscious incompetence - you know what you don't know

3. Conscious competence - you know how to do something but need to consciously focus

4. Unconscious competence - the new skill has become habit & is therefore effortless

Becoming self-aware & developing the ability to read people is like waking up from a long stupor.

And it's a superpower in sales.

#sales #communication