Show notes
Michael Reddington is a certified forensic interviewer and the president of InQuasive Inc., where he uses his background in forensics and understanding of human behavior to teach businesses how to use the truth to their advantage. On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Michael explains the 6-levels of listening and how they’ll improve your prospecting, discovery and sales calls. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Michael Reddington Certified Forensic Interviewer Resources: Michael’s LinkedIn InQuasive.com Michael’s Email – mreddington@inquasive.com. Transcript Will Barron: Welcome to the Salesman podcast. My name is will, and on today's episode, we're looking at the six levels of listening and how they're going to help you improve the performance of your prospecting discovery and sales calls with buyers. Today's guest is Michael Reddington, his certified forensic interview. He's got a book coming out in the not too distant future, The Disciplined Listening Method. You can find out more about Michael at InQuasive.com. And with that, Michael, welcome back again to the show. Michael Reddington: It is great to be here again, Will, thank you so much for having me. Will Barron: You're welcome. I'm glad to have you back on me. Is this the third time you've been on the show? Michael Reddington: It is, yes. I'm afraid to admit it, because you're going to cap me off, I don't want to stop myself from maybe getting invited back after, but yes, it's the third time. Are Salespeople Born with the Ability to Really Listen to Prospects and Buyers? · [00:59] Will Barron: Good man. Well, maybe there's like five or six people have come on three or four times a year. You're in a select group there and it's because of my fan of you and your work, mate. We're going to dive into the six levels of listening. We'll see if we can get through all six. If we don't, that's fine, we'll have you back on in the future to dive into them, but let's start with this, mate. Are we born with the ability, sales people specifically, are born with the ability to really, really listen to our prospects so that we can help them or is this a skill that we need to learn? Michael Reddington: I'm going to walk the fence a little bit. My official answer is it's a skill we need to learn. My unofficial answer is it is something we're born with, it's something that we typically stray away from. So if I was bold enough, which I guess I have to be, to take us all the way back to being infants, we literally have to be astute observers to everything going on around us, especially with Mommy and Daddy, to understand what they're thinking, what they're feeling. I have a four year old son. So he's right on track to developing his theory of mind, which is essentially understanding what people around us are thinking or feeling at any time, and just over the last couple of months, he started asking, “Daddy, are you mad at me?” which is a funny question to answer to my four year old because I might be, but I don't want to make this situation any worse. Michael Reddington: So I would contend that, especially as young children, yeah, we have this real curiosity, this real interdependence, we're very much in tune, but then as we grow up and we get distracted and develop our own thought processes and assumptions and such, then it becomes less of a skill that we really focus on. “Listening is something that we have to intentionally work to develop because so many of our sales conversations involve some level of stress. And as stress mounts, we tend to go to what we know, and generally in the sales profession, what we know best is ourselves, our product, our service. So if I feel like I'm under the gun, the best thing to do is to feel comfortable talking about me and what I'm selling and not listening, which comes back to backfire.” – Michael Reddington · [02:24] Michael Reddington: So that would lead me to my final answer if you will, that yes, especially in the sales profession, it is something in that we have to intentionally work to develop because so many of the conversations we have involve some level of stress. They should and as stress mounts, we tend to go to what we know, and generally in the sales profession, what do we know best? Ourselves, our product, our service. So if I feel like I'm under the gun, the best thing to do is to feel comfortable talking about me and what I'm selling and not listening, which comes back to backfire. The Key Identifiers of a Healthy Sales Call · [02:52] Will Barron: Is the goal then to develop a skillset or a series, which we'll talk in a second, of skills to listen better, or is it to be just so relaxed during a sales call? I don't know what you take, do, have, or be to be relaxed in a sales call, but to reduce all the stress from it? Should a healthy sales call have a healthy level of, maybe not stress, but energy on the call itself? Michael Reddington: Several questions in there. Try to work my way backwards. Yes, I think a sales call should have some energy. Passion can be a double edged sword, so we've got to be a little bit careful communicating our passion to too strong a degree, maybe with an audience that isn't quite there can be a little bit overbearing, overpowering, can push them away, but people often interpret passion for conviction and for knowledge and expertise. So having some passion and energy there certainly is important. “Confidence comes from three places: having experience, being prepared, and surviving mistakes. So the more mistakes we live through, the more relaxed we can be in future situations, because the brain will be like, “I've been through this before. I can get myself out of it again.” – Michael Reddington · [03:54] Michael Reddington: I do think being relaxed on the call helps and I'm a firm believer that often our confidence… Well, really confidence comes from three places. Having experience, which often we only get that the hard way, being prepared and surviving mistakes, which I think is an interesting subset of experience. So the more mistakes we live through, the more relaxed we can be in future situations, because, “I've been through this before. I can get myself out of it again.” But even on that prepared side, yes, it is true that we're under stress, we go to what we know and that can be dangerous, my personal experience and opinion has been the better we know our stuff, the easier it is for us to apply it to somebody else's world. Michael Reddington: So if I'm just learning it and top of mind, and I'm worried about how do I convey it, I might be really tempted just to inadvertently force it on people. However, if I know it so well inside, out, upside down, backwards, the research behind it, the support, whatever it is, now I can engage in a conversation where I turn the keys over to somebody else. I let them lead the conversation because I'm not worried about what I'm going to tell them. I'm now listening for the perfect opportunity to fit what we're looking for into their world so it resonates at a much greater level. So the energy and stress should probably be there, we care about what we're doing, we're passionate. Really being completely confident to an in depth degree with our material allows us to let the conversation come to us instead of forcing it. Michael Reddington: And then I think that first piece was, do I think people should focus on developing a listening skillset? Yes, without a doubt. For me, a mechanism that I try to use, being biassed self or talking about myself, of course, is going into these conversations I try to ask myself, “What can this person teach me?” Because if I go into a conversation feeling like I'm the one with all the information to give, that can put me into a validate mentality as opposed to a learning mentality and really limit my opportunity to create these connections that we're looking for. So I literally at the top of my notes will write down, “What can I learn? or “What can he teach me?” to try to put me into that mindset before the call starts. The Validation Mindset: What It Is and Why You Should Avoid It · [06:00] Will Barron: What do you mean by a validation mindset? Michael Reddington: When your a hammer everything looks like a nail. So we can call it confirmation bias if we want, but if I'm going to check the box mentality, if I can get someone to tell me that they're experiencing this pain or they have this opportunity or this financial need or this staff need or software need, then great, I got them where I want them. Now I'm not really listening, I'm trying to fit them into a box that I already have as fast as possible and I could be missing all kinds of other opportunities. Michael Reddington: We like to talk about listening for intelligence, as opposed to information. Listening to information can put us in that confirmation bias or that validation mentality where I'm looking for those three or four things that I'm predetermined to set somebody up for what I would like to sell them, but if I'm listening for intelligence, now I can pay attention to their tone of voice pauses, specific word choice. They might say some things that sound like throwaway statements about their day, their week, their weekend, their team, a call they just got off of, that could give me insight into another role to take, but if I'm just trying to fit them in that box, I'll never pick it up. How to Listen for Intelligence During the Sales Qualification Process · [07:10] Will Barron: For sure. And to be clear, qualifying our customers is important, right, whether we're all using banned med pick medic, one of like the bazillion different qualification frameworks, but I hear what you're saying, I think I do, tell me if I'm wrong here because I'm trying my best to actively listen as we do this year, right? Just ticking the boxes is something that we need to do, because we're a professional and we just make sure that someone is a fit for what's going on, but that's that's layer one. Layer two is, “Hey, are they responding to these questions? Do they give us information freely? Are they enjoying this? Are they in emotional turmoil? They've given me all these qualification questions, but they're never going to close a deal with me today because they're obviously stressed and we should be perhaps rearranging the call for another time.” Can we describe this as perhaps level one listening and level two listening, which is the word people can really separate themselves as salespeople. Michael Reddington: Yeah, I think that is fair. The one thing I would say about qualification without disputing the necessity of the steps, is be careful not to do it with an exclusionary mindset. I've worked with a lot of sales professionals. I'm sure you have as well that when they talk about qualifying, “Are they a good fit for me? I don't want to waste my time.” So they literally, if they go in with that time focused mentality, “I don't want to waste my time.” If the goal is literally qualify them as quick as I can, one way or the other, and we could end up disqualifying candidates or prospects that might be an okay fit for what we're trying to sell or it might be a good fit for something else we have or maybe even somebody else in our network that allows us again to build a relationship and demonstrate value over time. So yes, qualify for sure. Just I would coach to not have such an exclusionary mindset or approach when we do. Will Barron: Sure. I think I'll challenge you slightly on that, but agree in principle. Where I was going to go with it was, in a wonderful world, we've all got big fat pipelines, unlimited people, we can spend time on the phone, we can get to know them, we can close them six months a year from now when things change, when budget align, when timing aligns. Unfortunately, most sales people live in world of, “I've got to get my number by the end of the month,” which is both bad sales targets for management being handed down, multiple other factors as well. The Rigid Qualification Framework You Should Probably Stop Using · [09:25] Will Barron: So what you're saying is correct when we're doing [inaudible 00:09:28] rates, but I can just feel the audience going, “But, Mike, I've got to hit target and I've only got eight calls and I've only got so much time during the day and I've got to qualify them out.” Is there… how to describe this? Is that a mechanical process that salespeople need to rethink perhaps or is that just a mindset shift of, hey, you could qualify people hard, but don't miss important things that if you were listening more effectively, are there, which might counteract the very rigid qualification framework that we're probably using? “Time is the enemy of empathy and time is the enemy of quality. If I'm thinking to myself, “This conversation has to be done in five minutes, I have to make eight calls. If this isn't going to work, I’ve got to hurry up and get to the next one,” I'm literally prioritising time over empathy, understanding, resonating with my audience and I'm prioritising time over the quality of the call.” – Michael Reddington · [10:15] Michael Reddington: Yeah. I think you just hit another nail right on the head. I probably need a new analogy now, this is the second time we've used that one, but yes. So it's about finding a bit of a balance and it's about making the best of the time that we have. So time is the enemy of empathy and time is the enemy of quality. If I'm thinking to myself, “This conversation has to be done in five minutes, I have to make eight calls. If this isn't going to work, I got to hurry up and get to the next one,” I'm literally prioritising time over empathy, understanding, resonating with my audience and I'm prioritising time over the quality of the call and it can be tough, especially in what we do because in some ways our calls are predicated on failure. There's a reasonable likelihood this isn't going to work, I'm going to try to figure that out as fast as possible. If it's going to, I'm in, if it's not, I'm onto the next. Michael Reddington: So it's finding that balance of how am I going to maximise the time that I have, really give every opportunity to suss out value in this conversation and if it's not there, cut bait and move on, but do that more from a value standpoint, as opposed to a time standpoint. I guess my personal belief is oftentimes time takes care of itself. Not always. We can run on forever, we can run on to people that, “Ooh, someone I can talk to today,” and they'll just talk our ear off, but generally speaking, if we have a good process in place, the time piece takes care of itself. The Six Levels of Listening and Understanding · [11:38] Will Barron: Sure. That makes total sense. Okay. So we pitched the six levels of listening. We should probably get into, at some point of the show, since I've talked about it at the top, before we go down too of the many rabbit holes, Michael, do you want to run through perhaps the first one or two, and then I'll throw some questions at you and we'll see how many we can get through. We don't need to get through them all if we've don't h…
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