Too much selling and too less listening

Reading time:2 minutes

The meeting I’m going to tell helps to destroy the wrong prejudice about what is the NVC (non-verbal communication). Some time ago I was invited to a meeting by the selling manager of a firm that had some millions of invoice. His purpose was trying to understand whether his selling techniques were more useful and efficient than my NVC ones.

From the beginning mister R. started to list the courses he had attended and the different tricks that in the years he had stolen from some book in the marketing section of the bookshops. After half an hour of his monologue, I decided to make him understand the real nature of the NVC and the deep difference with his supposed techniques.

Suddenly, exploiting a rare moment in which he stopped talking to take a breath, I asked him which one of the five waiters was the best there. He looked at me astonished and dismayed. So I went on with my lecture and I started asking him which one of the starters we taste I didn’t like. After that, I asked him whether the couple to right near us would have conclude the night with an intercourse. At the end, when he was panicking, I asked him if he was aware that he got dirty his jacket sleeve and finally whether he was aware that he despised the person he was calling before getting in the restaurant.

Too much selling and too less listening

After these questions he had no words and was uncomfortable because he understood what the conclusion was. So I told him that the non-verbal communication is not a selling technique, but a language that allows to be more aware of themselves and of the reality around us, and then you can catch up if you want the opportunities that it gives to a careful observer. I added then that a good seller anticipates the needs of the clients and he fulfils them: only in this way he gain those clients forever doing an useful service and gaining himself at the same time.

After that lecture, given however with a polite voice, the evening took a turn more pleasant and it concluded with the purchase of a new and nice client for me, and one of the biggest opening of views that brought to R. a consistent increase in selling.

Luca Brambilla