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4 Simple Reasons Why Sales Reps Should be Chief Listening Officers [Video]

Amar Sheth
Amar Sheth

Here’s a novel concept: let’s listen to our buyers!

From the day we contemplated joining the sales profession right down to today, our Managers, Directors and VP’s have always emphasized the importance of listening. “Get to know your buyers”, we’ve heard. And “Know their likes and dislikes” and even “get to know them personally”.

And how about these catchy phrases?

“Listen more. Talk less.” Or how about “You’ve got 2 ears and 1 mouth. Listen twice as much as you speak.”?

Every sales person has good intentions in wanting to listen but it’s tough to practice.

Social Media Allows For Listening

In fact, social media is where listening can happen on a broad scale. You must listen on social media.

So, it’s now time. It’s time for sales professionals to take charge and be Chief Listening Officers. Social media just made that job a whole lot easier!

Here are 4 smart and simple reasons to become the CLO of your pipeline on social media.

Demonstrate Empathy

Knowing the buyer’s struggles and pain points and being able to intelligently articulate them is a huge plus. While the majority of your competitors pay lip service to this principle, you can find ways to internalize the buyer’s struggles and build creative solutions and ideas that they may not be aware of.

Demonstrate Interest

By listening, you show that you have interest in something other than just the order. This is why most buyers run from sales people – they think we just have the end goal in mind. But if you listen, show empathy and care, you can start to illustrate how you care about going through the struggles with them, irrespective of the order.

Respect The Buyer’s Time

Listening allows you to gather information and come to the table prepared so you’re not wasting the buyer’s time. In fact, listening could allow you to come to the first meeting with so many creative and out of the box ideas that you immediately begin to make a positive impact.

Inspire Confidence

Who doesn’t want to have the buyer’s confidence? We all do! Listening to them, internalizing their challenges and formulating unique and creative solutions allows the buyer to feel as if they’re dealing with the professional you are.

The Bottom Line

Because the amount of information online is flabbergasting, and there’s too much of it, your ability to find, sort through and evaluate it from a sales priority is what will make you successful.

But, make no mistake about it, if you want to get to know your buyers – if you desire that information – then you must be online. So social media isn’t really a “nice-to-have” at this stage of your sales career. It’s a darn right necessity.

Use these tips. Be the Chief Listening Officer of your pipeline.

Need help in getting started with listening on social media? Feel free to contact me and I can help you get started.

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