How to Improve Your Listening Skills & Stay Present in Sales Conversations
Charisma can take you far. But, if you don’t stop to learn about your customers—if you don’t hear what they have to say—you won’t be able to connect.
Salespeople display bad listening skills by:
- Talking over prospects and customers
- Encouraging feedback, but only hearing what they want to hear
- Not staying present at the moment
Imagine this: You're on a call with a potential customer, and your mind is preoccupied with distractions—your inbox, your lunch, an impending meeting.
This happens too frequently.
We often underestimate the fact that prospects can sense this lack of focus. Plus, you miss opportunities and insight when you’re not practicing effective listening.
Although improving your listening isn’t as sexy as the latest sales technology or cold-calling tips, its impact on conversion rates is undeniable.
How to Improve Your Listening Skills in Sales Conversations: 8 Practical Tips
Though it may sound like a basic skill, many people aren’t great listeners.
While 96 percent of global professionals consider themselves good listeners, one study suggests that half of adults can’t describe a conversation they just had, even moments later.
Thankfully, some practical tips can help improve your listening and overall communication skills as a salesperson.
1. Shut Up
Enthusiasm is great, especially during a demo or sales pitch, but not when it’s at the expense of others. Give people the opportunity to teach you about your product. Let them speak without interruption.
How often have you found yourself dominating the conversation on a sales call? You're pitching your product and running through features and benefits like a machine gun, hoping that somewhere, somehow, something will stick.
Guess what? You're doing it wrong.
If you're talking, you're not listening. And if you're not listening, you're missing out on valuable information.
Your prospects don't care about your product. They care about their problems, their pains, and their aspirations. They don't want a sales pitch, they want solutions. They want to be heard, to be understood, and to trust that you give a damn about their situation.
So, how do you do that? Shut up.
Listen for clues that will help you explore the root of their problem:
- Why are they looking for a solution?
- What factors play a role in their decision?
- Are they stressed out?
- Are they confused?
- Have other products burned in the past?
You’ll often get answers to these questions and more if you just let them talk.
Rely on their voice to shape the conversation, not yours.
Let them talk until they've got nothing more to say. Only then should you start speaking with empathy, understanding, and a focus on how your solution aligns with their needs.
Before a call or meeting, you might even commit to saying 20 percent less than you normally say so that your words have more impact when you do talk.
2. Ask Good Questions
Salespeople don’t need all the answers but should know how to find them. Prospects often already know how to solve a problem—they just lack the clarity to see results.
If you listen carefully and ask the right questions, prospects often do much of the work for you. They generate ideas and insights, which you can build on to solve their problem in a way they understand.
It’s important to recognize the difference between good and bad questions.
“Would you like a more secure phone?” is a bad question—it leads the customer to a foregone conclusion. Who’s going to say no?
Everybody wants a secure phone. If this were the only question you asked a group of people, you’d come away thinking they were all your target audience.
The better question is open-ended: “What don’t you like about your phone?”
If security comes up organically, like, “Well, I just read about how insecure our phones are, " ask follow-up questions. Explore the deeper meaning of insecurity in this context. The first answer someone gives will rarely contain all the information you need to understand their problem.
The takeaway here is to ask good sales questions genuinely. When a prospect answers your question, don’t just move on to the next talk track if it doesn’t make sense in the current context of the conversation. Make your questions flow and sound natural—this becomes much easier as your listening abilities improve.
3. Get Rid of Distractions
As salespeople, our digital worlds are riddled with distractions, such as LinkedIn notifications, Slack messages, emails popping up, calendar reminders, etc. These disruptions, however small, can distract us from our main objective: building relationships with our prospects.
Just like yours, your prospect’s time is valuable. So, do them—and yourself—a favor and eliminate any potential distractions during your call.
This means shutting down your email, making your phone silent, and closing any apps that might push notifications.
And don't forget about your thoughts. Instead of daydreaming about lunch, engage fully with your conversation—and give your prospect your full attention.
4. Show Empathy
Empathy might seem like a soft skill in the world of sales, but the thing is—we’re all human, and we crave connection.
Whether your prospect is confused, frustrated, or simply overwhelmed, taking a moment to acknowledge their feelings can go a long way. Empathizing with them shows that you understand their situation and are eager to help.
This could involve providing solutions beyond your product's capabilities or simply listening to their concerns. By showing empathy, you tell them their experience matters to you, making them more likely to trust you.
5. Be Present in the Moment
Although it might sound cliché, “being present” in sales conversations is essential. Multitasking may be the norm in our fast-paced world, but it’s a hindrance in sales.
By giving your prospect your undivided attention, you make them feel heard, respected, and valued. It's about switching off the autopilot and genuinely tuning into the conversation. This means actively listening to their responses and adapting your questions accordingly rather than sticking rigidly to a predetermined script.
But what about taking notes? That could be considered multitasking, right?
Here’s where you need to use technology to help you become less distracted and more productive. You can record your sales calls and listen to them later while leveraging tools like Pilot or Fathom to take notes for you automatically.
If your meeting involves a whole team, you may also act as the official note-taker and take meeting minutes. This requires attention to detail and is necessary for team and board meetings requiring more formality. It will also mean that paying attention and being present in conversations will be part of your obligations.
Every call is a new opportunity, a new adventure. Treat it as such. Be curious, be engaged, and have a genuine, uninterrupted curiosity about the person you’re talking to.
You might be talking with someone who lives on the other side of the globe and has a completely different life experience. Asking them, “Where do you live?” or “What do you do for fun?” breaks down walls, making the conversation more authentic and enjoyable for both parties.
6. Practice Active Listening
There's a difference between hearing someone speak and actively listening to them. Hearing is passive. It's your ears picking up the noise while your mind gallops somewhere else. But active listening? That's a whole other ball game.
When you're actively listening, you're all in. You're not just waiting for your turn to speak—you're genuinely invested in understanding what your prospect is trying to convey. You're tuning in, catching every word, every inflection, and every pause.
Active listening isn't about nodding your head and throwing in "uh-huh" and "I see." It's about asking probing questions based on what they've just said, paraphrasing or summarizing to confirm your understanding, and giving feedback.
Here's the kicker: For most of us, our active listening skills need to be continuously developed. It’s one of the toughest parts of effective communication and requires practice.
We're used to waiting for our turn to speak, pitch, or sell. But to truly master the art of sales and become better listeners, we need to switch gears. We need to reverse our instincts and train ourselves to listen actively instead of passively.
7. Consciously Rid Yourself of Biases
We've all got biases. It's part of being human. But to become a better salesperson, you've got to check those biases at the door and have an open mind.
Whether it's making assumptions about a prospect based on their job title, their company size, or even their location, biases can mess with your sales game big time. They cloud your judgment, they skew your perception, and, worst of all, they can cost you deals.
Now, you might be thinking, "I treat everyone the same. I don't have biases." And to that, I say: Wrong! We all have biases, whether we're conscious of them or not. The first step to overcoming them is acknowledging they exist.
The next step? Actively working to get rid of them.
You've got to approach every call and every conversation with a fresh pair of eyes and ears. Treat every prospect like they're your first and only prospect of the day.
Every conversation is a new opportunity to learn something, understand someone, and solve a problem. If you've got preconceived notions running the show, you won't get very far.
So, take a moment before you pick up that phone or jump into that Zoom meeting. Breathe. Clear your mind. Remind yourself that this isn't just another call, another prospect. This is a new person with unique needs, challenges, and goals.
8. Learn How to Pick up on Nonverbal Communication
Listening techniques go beyond your ears.
They involve understanding and interpreting nonverbal cues as well. Things like:
- Tone of voice
- Pauses
- Mannerisms
- Speed of talking
- Background noise
These clues can tell you a lot about your prospect's state of mind, level of interest, and reservations.
And let's not forget about video calls. Sure, you can't shake their hand or read their full body language, but there's still much information right in front of you. Are they maintaining eye contact or constantly looking at something off-screen? Are they leaning in, engaged, or leaning back, disinterested? Are they making facial expressions that indicate agreement, or do they look confused?
Learning to recognize these nonverbal cues will help you adapt your approach on the fly and address unspoken concerns.
Having good communication skills isn’t just about processing words—it’s about understanding the whole message, including what’s not being said.
Stop Passively Hearing and Start Actively Listening
Increasing conversion rates doesn’t always involve the latest and greatest sales technology or overhauling your entire sales strategy. Sometimes, all it takes is honing an age-old human skill: listening.
From embracing silence and staying fully present in the moment to actively listening and asking good questions, these will push your conversion rates up and to the right.
But when it is your turn to talk, you want to ensure you’re saying the right things and making as much of an impact as possible. That’s why we’ve put together a free sales script to help you close more deals with less effort.
And if you’re looking for a user-friendly CRM that can streamline your sales calls, manage better note-taking, and centralize your communication (freeing you up to listen more)—try Close.
