How can you improve your sales conversation listening skills?

2 Ask open-ended questions

Open-ended questions are questions that invite your prospects to share more information, opinions, or feelings. They usually start with words like what, how, why, where, when, or who. Open-ended questions help you uncover your prospects' needs, challenges, motivations, and expectations. They also help you avoid yes or no answers, which can limit the conversation and make it feel like an interrogation. To ask effective open-ended questions, try to be specific, relevant, and curious. Avoid leading, biased, or vague questions that might confuse or offend your prospects.

3 Listen for cues and clues

Cues and clues are signals that your prospects give you during the conversation that indicate their level of interest, engagement, and readiness to buy. They can be verbal or non-verbal, explicit or implicit, positive or negative. For example, a prospect might express a cue or clue by asking a question, sharing a success story, showing enthusiasm, raising an objection, hesitating, or crossing their arms. To listen for cues and clues, try to be observant, attentive, and responsive. Use them to adjust your pitch, overcome objections, provide value, and move the conversation forward.

4 Use the SIER model

The SIER model is a framework that helps you listen more effectively and strategically. It stands for Sense, Interpret, Evaluate, and Respond. This framework helps you process what your prospects say and how to reply. The first step is to pay attention to what they say and how they say it. Here, you use your senses to pick up their words, tone, body language, and emotions. The second step is to try to understand what they mean and what they want. You use your logic, intuition, and experience to analyze their messages and context. The third step is to decide what to do with what your prospects say. You use your judgment, criteria, and goals to assess their needs, value, and fit. Finally, the fourth step is to communicate back with your prospects. You use your skills, techniques, and tools to provide feedback, ask questions, offer solutions, and close the deal.

5 Practice and get feedback

Like any skill, listening requires practice and feedback. You can't improve your sales conversation listening skills if you don't apply them and learn from them. To practice and get feedback, try to use the tips and techniques mentioned above in your real sales conversations. Record yourself or ask someone to observe you and give you constructive criticism. Identify your strengths and weaknesses, and work on them. Seek out opportunities to listen to different types of prospects, scenarios, and objections. The more you listen, the better you'll become.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?