BRX Pro Tip: Don’t Confuse Hearing for Listening
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with BRX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you, Lee, it’s important as a professional trying to genuinely serve that we’re having good, clear communication. But it’s so easy, I think, to fall into the trap of confusing hearing for listening.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:19] Yeah, I think this tip works for sales. It works definitely when you’re interviewing. But in either case, it’s important to truly listen. And when you’re truly listening, you are not thinking about what you’re going to say next. And that’s really hard for some people. You got to be actively listening for the beliefs, the truths, the pain, and the opportunity and really seek to understand what the person is sharing with you. That way, you can open up a dialogue, and you can probe, and you can clarify, you can dig deeper. You can truly understand and empathize with that person.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:57] If, on the other hand, all you’re trying to do is wait for your moment to squeeze in your brilliance or your sales pitch, if you have that mindset, you’re, by definition, not listening. You’re, like you said earlier, waiting. You’re just waiting to interject what you want to say into the conversation. So, rather than wait and rather than hear, start listening.
Stone Payton: [00:01:23] Well, and from a hosting mechanic’s perspective or a sales mechanic’s perspective, one of the things that will liberate you, equip you to genuinely listen to what the other person is saying is if you had the comfort of knowing you’ve always got a fallback question or two that if you need it, you can call it up immediately. You’re not going to get caught off guard when it is time for you to ask a question because even if one doesn’t come to you as a product of that part of the conversation, you’ve always got a handful of questions you can lean on that are always appropriate and always prompt further meaningful conversation that you, in turn, can again actively listen to.
