ACTION 4: USE APPROPRIATE EYE CONTACT AND OPEN EARS

Eye contact and open ears are important pieces to the success of your start. We are more connected in our communication with the buyer when we incorporate our eyes and ears from the first moment of contact.

Use Visual Cues to Engage

Make eye contact is an age-old communication tip that always is current. Your eyes are a powerful tool to make a deeper connection and ensure you are clearly communicating your message.

Eye contact is essential for connecting in face-to-face conversations, and “How much eye contact should I make?” is a real (and very tough) question! There isn’t a formula for eye contact that we can easily put into practice. Using appropriate eye contact is the key.

Appropriate eye contact is achieved when you pay attention to the buyer’s signals to determine what is comfortable for them. Some people are not comfortable with direct eye contact, while others will stop talking if you look away. I’ve had conversations where I had a hard time looking down to take notes because of the buyer’s intense eye contact.

Cultural and gender differences also are a factor. I’ve noticed that women professionals can acceptably make more eye contact with both genders than men can. You’ll need to find the right amount of eye contact for each situation by paying attention.

What you do with your eyes sends a message about what is important to you. Your eyes are beams that illuminate what you are focused on. When you focus on Them, you demonstrate that you are paying attention and that They matter.

Appropriate eye contact allows you to see their reaction as you Initiate your conversation and quickly make adjustments to make it most comfortable for that buyer. Matching eye contact with open ears makes this easier.

Listen with Open Ears

Many sellers talk too much, which creates a conversation dynamic that is more tell than collaboratively sell focused. Though we do need to be ourselves and position who we are and why they should talk with us, we can also quickly talk ourselves out of a sales opportunity.

Buyers don’t have time to waste. They will shut you out or close the conversation if they think you are wasting their time by talking at Them.

Use open ears to make ear contact and keep the conversation open. Some call this listening. I use the expression “ear contact” because the term is more descriptive of effective, active listening. Our ears can be used very effectively to connect to their words, intent, and emotion, and therefore their hot buttons that may make or break our sale.

Open ears also means that when you ask a question, you need to do more than just wait to talk. You need to pause and listen for the response. The pausing is important. If you’re like most people, after asking a question, you may only wait between one and three seconds before you ask another question, repeat the question, or move along.

I know I’ve been guilty of this! That’s why I appreciate that many years ago a Reflector shared with me that when someone—me at the time—asks a question and then tries to rush her through an answer, it’s extremely frustrating and shuts down her thought process. This closes any opportunity for her to meaningfully contribute to the conversation, ideas, and solutions. She reminded me that I need to pause, especially if I’ve asked a thought-provoking or detailed question, and wait for the response.

In my observations, I find that some people need between ten and twenty seconds to formulate and begin to verbalize their response. That’s a l-o-n-g time to remain quiet and stay focused without multitasking, answering the question yourself, or beginning to ask other questions. However, the response is usually well worth the discomfort of being silent for a short time.

For telephone conversations a long pause becomes uncomfortable and the buyer begins to wonder if you hung up on them. A pause of six to eight seconds is effective for telephone conversations.

If you need further proof of the importance of listening, the Gearner Group’s research based on interviews with over 850 sales professionals found an 88 percent correlation with sales success and active listening. Effective active listening skills were observed in 93 percent of those in the top group of sales, compared to 8 percent in the lowest percentiles.

Ear contact is most important in situations where you don’t have a visual connection. To make good ear contact use open ears in the Initiate step and in the whole conversation:

• Listen without distractions. Stop multitasking!

• Take notes on key points to help you focus in this conversation. Then refer to these notes in your preparation for future conversations.

• Postpone evaluating what they are saying and just listen. Don’t start mentally composing your answer while they’re still talking.

• Paraphrase the information they share. You will listen more carefully when you know you need to paraphrase the information.

Using open ears allows you to “hear” opportunities that you can then translate into sales.