{"id":213,"date":"2008-10-20T13:12:47","date_gmt":"2008-10-20T13:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wensmedia.com\/\/salesarchive\/permalink\/2008\/10\/20\/091247.html"},"modified":"2008-10-20T13:12:47","modified_gmt":"2008-10-20T13:12:47","slug":"the-gift-of-gab-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/uncategorized\/the-gift-of-gab-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gift of Gab"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt; text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><b style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal\"><span style=\"font-size: 20pt; font-family: Tahoma\">The &lsquo;Gift&rsquo; of Gab<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\"><span style=\"mso-tab-count: 1\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>Every once in a while I meet a sales person who proudly proclaims, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the gift of gab.&rdquo;<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>In sales, that &lsquo;gift&rsquo; is more aptly described as &lsquo;the curse of chatter.&rsquo;<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\"><span style=\"mso-tab-count: 1\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>Successful sales professionals know that sales is really more about listening than it is about talking. <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\"><span style=\"mso-tab-count: 1\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>Those with the curse more often engage in product feature speak than they do in providing customer-focused solutions or opportunities.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\"><span style=\"mso-tab-count: 1\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>Customers don&rsquo;t care how much you know until they know how much you care&hellip;.and caring is demonstrated by listening. <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\"><span style=\"mso-tab-count: 1\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>Listening is by far the most important and difficult skill a sales professional can learn and practice.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>The sales people who annoy and alienate prospects the most are those who claim to be good listeners but follow every customer objection with a &ldquo;yah, but&hellip;..&rdquo;<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\"><span style=\"mso-tab-count: 1\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>There is no room for the word &lsquo;but&rsquo; in a good listener&rsquo;s vocabulary.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">To be a professional listener you need to;<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">1.) Earn the right to ask questions by learning something about the prospects business before you make a call.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">2.) Prepare with open ended questions that encourage the prospect to express their views and feelings.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">3.) Demonstrate you are listening by taking notes. (Always ask permission to take notes. &ldquo;Your input is important to me, do you mind if I take a few notes?&rdquo;) <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">4.) Paraphrase and summarize what you hear.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Don&rsquo;t start a debate.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">5.) Use the language and needs you hear the customer express when you make your presentation.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">6.) Make certain that every benefit you present relates to a need you heard the prospect express.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt 7.5pt\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">There is a lot more money to be made being interested than there is in being interesting.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>So why not shut up and make some money!<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"border-right: windowtext 1pt solid; padding-right: 4pt; border-top: windowtext 1pt solid; padding-left: 4pt; padding-bottom: 1pt; margin-left: 7.5pt; border-left: windowtext 1pt solid; margin-right: 0in; padding-top: 1pt; border-bottom: windowtext 1pt solid; mso-element: para-border-div; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt\">\n<p style=\"border-right: medium none; padding-right: 0in; border-top: medium none; padding-left: 0in; padding-bottom: 0in; margin: 7.5pt 0in 0pt; border-left: medium none; padding-top: 0in; border-bottom: medium none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 1.0pt 4.0pt 1.0pt 4.0pt\"><b style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal\"><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">SELLING IN A TOUGH ECONOMY<\/span><\/b><span style=\"font-family: Tahoma\">:<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Have you considered having Wayne Ens facilitate this enlightening workshop for your sellers?<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><b style=\"mso-bidi-font-weight: normal\"><span style=\"font-size: 9pt; font-family: Tahoma\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &lsquo;Gift&rsquo; of Gab &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Every once in a while I meet a sales person who proudly proclaims, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve got the gift of gab.&rdquo;&nbsp; In sales, that &lsquo;gift&rsquo; is more aptly described as &lsquo;the curse of chatter.&rsquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Successful sales professionals know that sales is really more about listening than it is about talking. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}