Active Listening: How to earn trust
Have you ever had someone talk over you? Or interrupt you in the middle of a sentence? How does that make you feel? I’m assuming, when that happens, thoughts like “why am I even talking to this person” creep in. You may even have feelings of betrayal and feel like walking away. At the very least you start to lose trust in the person you’re speaking with because they are acting as if what you say doesn’t matter. That’s where active listening comes in.
There have been many times in my life where I haven’t felt heard and feel like the person I’m talking to only wants to feel heard. The conversation feels completely one-sided. Most times I feel myself wanting to be polite and slowly back out of the conversation; however, in my head I want to sprint for the door! What am I even doing engaged in a conversation with this person? This person clearly isn’t listening to what I’m saying!
There are very few confidants in most people’s lives that we allow ourselves to truly open up to. Mother, Father, Sibling, Significant Other, Friend, and Therapist to name a few. Every now and then, though, in business or in social interactions we find someone who we believe we can build a friendship or relationship with. We find someone that listens to us, hears us, and empathizes with us. A person who allows us to truly feel heard. How nice of a feeling that is! We feel like we can tell them anything and they will hear us in a non-judgmental way.
What if there were a repeatable method to become that trusted liaison, that confidant? Wouldn’t that be a differentiator in both personal and professional life? What I’ve learned is to become a good conversationalist, friend, and confidant, you must first become a good listener. There’s a reason Epictetus, the great Stoic Philosopher once said “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” In other words, in order to speak, one must first hear what the other is saying. We must, therefore, earn the right to speak.
We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
Epictetus
In the age of the smartphone, there are constant demands on our attention. We all know this, yet we become more and more distracted. Kids, Twitter, get-togethers, Pinterest, and weekend plans all fill the calendar. Ah yes, that dreaded calendar that dictates where we should be and when. It’s all cause for a million thoughts and a cluttered head. Yet we’re supposed to be present in our lives. But how?!?
I’ll save the Meditation post for another day, but one way to stay grounded is active listening. What is active listening? It requires that the listener to act with a sense of curiosity to hear, understand, and then respond to what is being said. Active Listening is paying attention to your conversation partner, focusing on what they have to say, reacting to their cues, and contextualizing their needs and desires. Active Listening is, well, actually being present and listening. And there are some tangible benefits to Active Listening as listed below:
- Building Trust
- Showing Empathy
- Discovering new ideas
- Building patience
Active Listening also greatly improves the success of a salesperson. Why you ask? Because the first step in any sales cycle is Discovery. What’s the best way to understand your prospect’s problems? That’s right, to allow them to voice their frustrations and address their problem head on, allowing you to package together a solution. All it takes is the following steps accompanied with curiosity.
- Engage with your eyes (Eye Contact)
- Avoid Distractions
- Have an open and inviting posture
- React in both non-verbal (Smiling) and verbal ways (acknowledgement)
Once engaged in active listening, ensure you also engage in intelligent and curious questions. A primary example of this was a recent customer meeting of mine at a manufacturer. The company is a holding company and upon learning that some of the subsidiaries shared inventory, but also competed with one another, I became very curious about how they might be able to leverage those features to increase revenues. I began asking questions like “Do the subsidiaries share inventory data?” and “If Company A shared inventory with Company B, how might you be able to save on bulk orders, while also limiting scrap?” How heard the customer must have felt! I had already become a business partner!
The funny thing is, active listening doesn’t just apply to work. Think if you could take this skill to your relationships, to a party with a new group of friends, or even on a first date. If you’re going to build trust, learn about your prospect, and ultimately establish a relationship, what is there to lose in giving it a try?