Have you ever returned from vacation and on your first day back at work asked a colleague, “How was your vacation?” While knowing that what you really wanted was to talk about yours? Think about it.
It doesn’t really roll off the tongue in the same way as the 80/20 rule, but the advantages of the 43/57 rule may create more opportunities in business than we may initially consider. Keep in mind this, by Instagram star and keynote speaker Lolly Daskal, “The heart of dialogue is simple - The profoundness is to listen.”
Traditionally, sales teams used customer relationship management data to inform their sales strategies, utilising reflective sales comments and customer feedback to create a profile of what works and what doesn’t in completing sales. However, Amit Bendov and Eilon Reshef felt that the anecdotal, and often incomplete, nature of this existing data collection, reliant as it was on sales representatives’ conscious recollections of their customer interactions, was “often guesswork, incomplete, inaccurate and subjective", so not fit for purpose.
They considered there must be “a better way”, and in 2015, launched a start-up that became Gong Research Labs, and one of their first ventures was to analyse audio from more than 25,000 sales interactions, seeking to find out who was listening, when, and who was just ‘waiting their turn', focused on their response. Their subsequent research found that optimum sales yield was achieved where the salesperson talked 43 per cent of the time and listened 57 per cent. Thus, the 43/57 rule was born.
In practice, very few, either salesmen or customers, were listening, with the salesmen often working from a mantra or a ‘crib sheet', while the customer, predominantly at the outset with a negative predisposition, is focused on ending the call. Both were talking, but neither listening, ignorant of the advice of 17th-century French philosopher, Jean de Bruyere, who remarked, “The great charm of conversation consists less in the display of one's own wit and intelligence than in the power to draw forth the resources of others.”
It seems most of us like to talk, and especially about our product, and according to research by Harvard University, we need to demonstrate more respect for the process of negotiation, to listen, and to show we are open to understanding the proposition. In fact, away from commercial applications, we must listen and be certain our responses are tailored to what we have been told, rather than what we are taking from what has been said. We need to be empathetic.
Kate Murphy, the author of ‘You’re Not Listening’, suggests we stay calm, saying "Deep breaths are always good. They're always good. Because it... calms down that fear response. It helps you get more centred", and that allows us to develop our curiosity, making it so much more important to be curious than to be right. Again, if you think about it, we so often go into conversations seeking not to be wrong, rather than determined to be right.
The reality is that listening doesn’t come easy for some, and Swedish scriptwriter Annika Thor says the silences between words are just as important as those words. However, we can also benefit from her advice in developing a more viable speaking/listening ratio: First, to use silence, because it nurtures ideas and engenders respect. Secondly, let your questions be ‘organic’, not from a prepared script, and where possible, use a key word or phrase from what the other person has said and demonstrate that you are indeed listening. Thirdly, respect the process, the people, and stay engaged with them and their agenda.
It's all very well thinking we have ‘stuff’ we want to say... but we surely make better impressions, socially, and sell more product, commercially, if we practice effective listening.
Ray Petersen
The writer is a media consultant
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