Mr. Sales Consultant, take heed! The time has come to talk about listening!

And then I hear you say, hey, what are you going on about Sonya?

Well, it’s all about our internal dialogue when we make a consultative call.

You see, listening is a multi-functional task that requires thinking about how you do it. Maybe you would not agree. Especially If you won your new sales executive position based on being an expert with years of experience. You are indeed a tip-top consultant who knows how to implement a call. Who am I to open your canny little ears?

But what if there was more cream, or pudding available if you reconsidered the process of making those sales calls? Sorry to bring it back to puddings. Having your cake and eating it is great. When you stand back and look at your creation and want to share, knowing how to blend the ingredients will either leave a good or bad taste in the mouth of the consumer.

The phenomena of hearing and therefore listening can be split if you like …no bananas needed.

So, listen up, we need to examine this experience as biological and then as a linguistic one!

The eardrum vibrates when sound waves enter the ear canal. Vibrations then move through three bones which are connected in the middle ear. This movement results in fluid moving in the chamber and synthesizes many intricate cells that are hair-like, and this in turn creates nerve impulses. Biological listening has occurred!

Therefore, are hearing and listening linguistic skills you can improve on?

You see the message one receives forms an image in your brain.  Yes, an internal movie picture, that sets out how we shall interact with a piece of information. We first tell ourselves a story in our inner language about what we think we have heard, and this enables us to communicate, and reply.

Homosapians are not just receiving objects, that absorb a signal. We are a body that accumulates experiences that affect our ability to hear. Shall we call this our inner filter?

The discourse another person communicates to you is usually not linear. Well, sometimes it is, and we tend to turn off our receiver, and our ears when this happens.

We do not passively listen when we make a call to a client or receive one. Before we make the call, we have an agenda, and it is that agenda, image, film in our scull, and thought process that can result in blocking out what was stated. And why? When we build a relationship, we base our thoughts on what we experience in the real world and absorbed previously. So, what happens if your filter has not been cleaned out lately? 

If you ask a question, be prepared to listen fully to the answer.

What we interoperate when we converse with any client is governed by many things. Such as problems from home, or lack of sleep. Maybe you see yourself as an expert and believe your way is the only way. It could be possible that when you make that call to a client you do not clear your mind first, list the questions you need to ask, and then say to yourself, I will listen. I will not interject. If I give up the need to be right, I might learn something. There could be many reasons why a company cannot commit to signing a contract this month. If we override the answers to our questions, then we have lost not only the long-term goal but forgotten what communication is all about.

A call to a client is a three-way split! I said no bananas!

So, let's put the kettle on and think about eating and digesting that cake we baked earlier. Maybe call it the fraction cake of communication? Let's cut it and split it three different ways. Firstly, we have an audible conversation that you could record, that everyone in the office can hear. After that, what else is going on? This is where the two of us come in. The three-way split consists of that outward conversation and then the simultaneous conversations that the two of us are having in our heads in private whilst within the dialogue. And if this internal chatter is based on a head full of last night's worries, or how famished we are, or many other things, our interpretation, and maybe the other people's will not make a tasty three-layer that can feed positive future outcomes.

Sonya Vukomanovic 23/01/2024 ©  Picture Credit: Vinicius "amnx" Amano

You can see my other blogs here.https://tiggysonyasartmusicnaturepatch.blogspot.com/ is a blog dedicated to music, art, nature, and books

And also here: https://thisjourneytowardsthelight.blogspot.com/ which is my blog dedicated to reaching out to others who have experienced narcissistic abuse and can see the truth, have taken on the lessons, and want to share with others.