Listen and Take Note!

If you think you’re a good listener, here’s how you can become an even better one. After your next sales call or phone contact, look at your notes. What do you see? Dates, dollar figures, maybe a to-do list for follow up?

That’s a good start, says Pat Ewert, marketing and account development manager for Tandem Professional Employer Services in Oakbrook, IL. But Ewert has built a successful career in sales by using her notes as more than just a record of what happened in a meeting. She uses them during the meeting as a listening aid, a memory jogger and a conversational road map. Smart note taking, she says, can help put a meeting back on track, uncover key objections, even seal a deal that otherwise might have fallen apart.

Ewert’s recent meeting with the owner of a Chicago-area software firm is a case in point. The prospect had told Ewert she knew little about what Ewert’s company, a type of firm called a “professional employer organization” (PEO), did. So Ewert had planned to spend most of the sales call educating the prospect on how a PEO could serve as an outsourced human resource department, handing everything from processing payroll to writing employee manuals to advising on layoffs.

At one point, the prospect said, “Well, I understand that PEOs use their own FEIN (federal employer identification) numbers.”

That’s when alarms went off in Ewert’s head. “I thought, wait a minute, someone who’s never talked to a PEO before wouldn’t know that,” says Ewert. She jotted down the notation “FEIN?” on her pad and let the prospect continue.

A few minutes later, Ewert circled back to clarify things. “You know, you’d mentioned that a PEO uses their own FEIN number,” she said. “That’s something that somebody who’d researched PEOs might have knowledge of. Refresh my memory: did you say you’d talked with other PEOs?”

The client fessed up. Yes, she’d talked to a few. And in fact, she was uneasy about the fact that some PEOs were larger national firms who might not give her personalized service. That gave Ewert the opening she needed to emphasize Tandem’s strengths as a local company that could respond quickly to the prospect’s needs.

Note taking saved the sale, says Ewert – and many others over her 30-year career. “By taking notes, you can get your ears working in concert with your eyes. That forces you to focus, and it makes you a better listener,” she says.

One trick that has served Ewert well over the years is to listen for what she calls “the big gulp”–and to write down anything the client says immediately after. “If all of a sudden your client leans forward, takes a big breath and asks you a question, you gotta figure that question is really big,” she says. One recent prospect, for example, was sitting back in his chair but then suddenly rocked forward, inhaled, and said, “I’m about to do some layoffs. How do I make sure I do them right?” Says Ewert, “I knew I’d hit pay dirt.” She wrote down the word “layoffs” and then discussed in detail the ways her firm could help.

Jotting down key ideas can help after the meeting, too. Carmen Gonzalez, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Sys-Con Media in Montvale, NJ, sells advertising in six magazines aimed at software developers. Before leaving a sales call, she makes sure she has three crucial pieces of information in her notes: the client’s business goals over the next one to two years, what they hope to gain from an advertising campaign, and how widespread geographically their client base is.

Gonzalez then morphs that information into a customized proposal. If the clients want to bump up awareness of their products, she suggests print advertising. If they’re looking for lead generation, she’ll suggest sponsorship of one of Sys-Con’s email newsletters or an ad on its Website. Each proposal is tailored to whether the client’s customer base is regional, national or international. She’ll also include a results projection based on response rates from other advertisers who have used that medium in the past.

For Gonzalez, accurate notes are the gift that keep on giving. If clients mention they’re developing products for other software platforms, Gonzales will tip off her magazine’s special events department and editorial staff. “That might be a story in the making or a new participant in one of our trade shows.” And, of course, it’s a new opportunity for another sale.

Book: Listening Skills

[Between the Words]: The Art of Perceptive Listening by Dr. Norm Wakefield (Fleming H. Revell Co., 2002)

The Business of Listening: A Practical Guide to Effective Listening by Diane Bonet (Crisp Publishing, 1995)

The Good Listener by James E. Sullivan (Ave Maria Press, 2000)

Listening: The Forgotten Skill: A Self-Teaching Guide by Madelyn Burley-Allen (John Wiley & Sons, 1995)

The Art of Communicating: Achieving Interpersonal Impact in Business by Bert Decker (Crisp Publishing, 1997)

Courses and Workshops on Listening

Active Listening Skills: The Business of Listening, a customizable seminar offered by Cypress

Media Group as an on-site offering at your work location or at an off-site location of your choice. For more information, visit www.cypressmedia.net or call 770/640-9918.

Dynamic Listening Skills for Successful Communication, a two-day seminar offered by the American Management Association, with upcoming dates in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC and Chicago. For more information, visit www.amanet.org/seminars/cmd2/2271.htm or call 1-800-262-9699.

Active Listening, an in-house seminar offered by The Training Clinic. For more information visit www.thetrainingclinic.com or call 1-800-937-4698.

Effective Listening and Feedback, an in-house seminar offered by the Fairlane Training & Development Center. For more information, visit www.ftdc.com or call 1-888-993-3673.

Basics of Communication: Listening, a four-hour seminar offered by Bob Brooke Communications. For more information, visit www.geocities.com/bobbrooke/home.htm or call 610/296-7861.