The secret superpower of sales: Listening

“Don’t make a threat. Don’t get angry. Reason with people” – Don Corleone

It might be peculiar that the boss of a violent mob gang would advise against threats. But it was Don Corleone’s ability to reason with people that gave his family their peaceful years.

But what does it mean to reason with people? It means you listen to people and thereby make them listen to you.

Beyond New York gangsters, listening is a skill universally recognised as important. Many aphorisms exist: “you have 2 ears and one mouth for a reason”; “listening is the better half of communication”; “when you talk, you only repeat what you already know. But if you listen you might learn something new”. However, much of this fails to teach you how to listen.

There are three key listening techniques this blog will highlight:

1.       Mirroring

2.       Labelling

3.       Questioning

Mirroring

Humans are emotional creatures. And a core emotional need is the desire to be heard.

To make people feel heard, mirror them. We can mirror people’s words, body language and feelings.

The surface level of mirroring includes repeating back phrases they use or crossing our arms in the same way. However, the more significant mirroring comes in adopting our counterparties feelings.

Studies have shown that when people actively try to feel what the person they are speaking to is feeling, neurotransmitters in the brain begin to mimic the other person’s brain. This phenomena is called “neural resonance”. Neural resonance is a critical component of effective communication.

Whilst mirroring might seem manipulative. To mirror successfully, we must genuinely pay attention. By paying genuine attention, we do a service to those we speak to. Everybody wants to be heard.

Labelling

Second is labelling. The proper effectiveness of this technique is, again, rooted in emotions.

In labelling, you call out the emotions that you sense behind a person’s words: “It sounds like you’re upset” or “It seems like you’re excited”.

You cannot listen to a person fully if you rely only on their words. The true meaning of what someone says is contained within the emotional undertones. Emotions always exist a layer below the surface. Use labels to bring these emotions to the surface by trying to identify them.

When labelling, do not be afraid to be mistaken. In fact, welcome it. For it gives your counterpart the ability to clarify. Making your counterparty correct you gives them a sense of comfort within the conversation. It also gifts you the opportunity to listen some more.

Questioning

Although there is no such thing as a silly question, there are good questions and better questions. By mirroring and labelling, we will have a strong understanding of what is being said. With questions, we should go beyond the surface level and identify the core.

To have better questions, we must focus on following up. It is the follow up questions in response to initial answers that uncover the core of a situation. The best follow-up questions start with “how”. This is because “how” evokes empathy and is open-ended, encouraging your counterparty to speak more. By answering “how” questions we also get to the core.  As Herb Cohen, the world’s greatest negotiator, explains “The difference between the how and the what is like the difference between the head and the heart, between the knowing and the believing.”

 To illustrate this, imagine a doctor with two patients both complaining about similar coughs. By answering “how” the cough came about, the doctor can differentiate the causes and thereby prescribe different treatments. In listening, we must always look beyond surface level symptoms and get to the root cause to understand what people really need. 

Conclusion

Mirroring, labelling and an emphasis on “how” based questions are discussed in much greater detail in Never Split the Difference by Chriss Voss. From hostage situations and bomb threats, Voss learnt that by listening, we are able to get people to open up more. The more people talk to us, the more we understand what they really need. And once we understand what they need, we can give it to them. Such an approach is effective for gangsters, FBI negotiators and salespeople.