Do you listen to yourself enough?

No, I don’t mean do you talk enough! Most of us do that – me especially. But do you know what you sound like? Do you know how much of the conversation you are talking for and how much you are listening for? Do you know how long you pause after hearing something, before jumping in? Do you gap search? (Where you are eager to make a point and ready to jump in, so not really listening but just looking for that opening – you can tell from the slight intake of breath you make every time the other person pauses.) Do you respond curiously to your customer’s (or other interlocutor’s) observations, or do you just move on to your next topic? Do you interrupt or speak over other people?

I will bet a small sum of money that if you consider a recent conversation or call and estimate the answers to the above, and then ask the person you were talking to for the same estimates, you will get a VERY different picture. And if you listen to a recording of a conversation, you are likely to be astonished that you are not as good at listening or engaging as you think you are. Not specifically you, all of us.

But the way that we engage – especially the way we listen – is perhaps THE MOST IMPACTFUL ASPECT OF BUILDING TRUST. So how do you do better?

As I indicate above, listen to yourself! One of the benefits of so many remote meetings is that we can record them. And listen back. This is easy to do with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams etc, although you have to remember to hit the record button. There are many tools out there that do this automatically for you (Gong, Chorus/Zoominfo are the 800lb gorillas but there are tools like Jiminny, Firelies, Fathom, Sybill and more – several of them providing freemium options). Super easy to install, you get recording, transcription and typically an AI summary, and often a call summary – eg how long was each person speaking for.

Then listen to yourself. You will be astonished.

Whether you are in sales, marketing, engineering or anything else, if you have a lot of conversations with people, getting better at listening will help. Try it. It’s free, except for the time it takes to listen to yourself, and exceptionally valuable.

Side point: the first question everyone asks, especially sales, is “Will the customer/prospect object?”. In the vast majority of cases people have no problem with it. All of the automated tools will alert the participants that recording is occurring, and you can easily explain that you are using it to ensure you don’t miss anything, you don’t want to be distracted taking notes and you are looking to improve your skills. On the rare occasions when people prefer you to turn it off, turn it off.