If there’s one skill that separates good salespeople from great ones, it’s listening. Not the polite kind where you wait for your turn to talk—but the kind where you actually absorb what’s being said and what isn’t.
I learned this lesson early in my consulting career.
Sitting across from executives, I realized that most weren’t looking for a pitch—they were looking for someone who understood.
Once they felt heard, they opened up about the real issues holding their business back.
Even later I was given a piece of advice that I have taken with me to every meeting, and which has given me great success with my sales hat as well as building better relationships with long term customers:
"When you are talking, THEY have control. When THEY are talking, you have control".
Think about it next time you are 50 slides into your presentation and the customer is texting on his phone.
Listening Builds Trust Faster Than Talking
In high-stakes enterprise sales, every word matters. Clients can sense when you’re more interested in closing a deal than solving a problem.
Listening flips that dynamic. It signals respect, curiosity, and partnership.
It's not just about blurting out every bit of information in your great solution. In most cases, nobody cares.
Are you working out what's important to the customer? If so, what's the point, to quote Monty Python, of " droning on and on until you fall over backwards".
You can't listen and talk at the same time. And just getting to the end of your presentation is not a victory.
Listening isn’t passive—it’s active engagement. It’s taking notes, clarifying assumptions, and validating emotions. It’s also asking one more question when most people stop.
So. prepare, listen more and talk less. Focus on what's important, send the rest as an Appendix
The Power of Reflection
One of the simplest and most effective techniques I use is reflection—repeating back what I’ve heard in my own words. Something like, "So what I’m hearing is that your challenge isn’t just data accuracy—it’s that you’ve lost confidence in your forecasting.”
That one sentence can shift the tone of an entire meeting. Suddenly, you’re not selling—you’re collaborating.
A quick funny story on reflection, or people that can't.
Part of my role as a Managing Consultant was to review and career plan with more junior staff. Career Planning as part of your review, do you remember those days?
Anyway, I inherited this guy who was supposedly a superstar in the making, A+++++ as we say, and myself and his former manager, were giving him a six-monthly review.
All positive but one of the grades we gave him was a B in that he struggled to listen to other people and take advice.
Apparently, we had affronted him as he was, in effect, an expert at "Proactive Listening" and when people thought he wasn't listening in fact he was hyper listening and knew everything that was going on.
When we pointed out to him that this was all rubbish and all that it did was demonstrate that he really didn't listen, we spent the next hour trying to explain that a B was a good grade and we were just trying to help him.
It didn't end well as effectively, he was too busy talking to listen to the career advice we are giving him.
Footnote to this story. Coincidentally, I took over an account that he had been project managing and as he was A+++++ I expected great things.
We were, as normal, transitioning the team out after a while and a few days in, the new team knocked on my door and sheepishly asked if we could talk.
Apparently, the work we had done for this fabulous client over the A+++++ regime was terrible quality, poorly documented and possibly left us open to litigation.
It could be a coincidence, but someone who doesn't listen can hardly deliver what the client wants, or needs, and can put your own company in peril. Just a thought.
What Clients Actually Want
Every client wants three things:
- To be understood.
- To be respected.
- To be confident that you can help.
4. To be heard
5. For you to be the one they risk their career on as they trust you
Listening accomplishes all three in less time than any slide deck.
The Discipline of Quiet
In a world obsessed with automation and noise, quiet has become a competitive advantage. When you stop talking, clients fill the silence with insight—and that’s where the real opportunity lives.
At GBUS, we believe listening isn’t soft—it’s strategic. It’s how trust starts and how long-term partnerships endure.
Key Takeaway:
Sales success begins when you stop trying to impress and start trying to understand.