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The definition of emotional awareness. Not
only is being aware of what's happening,

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but realizing how our actions may then
affect someone around us. You're listening to

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the Audible Ready Podcast, the show
that helps you and your teams sell more

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faster. We'll feature sales leaders sharing
their best insights on how to create a

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sales engine that helps you fuel repeatable
revenue growth. Presented by the team of

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Force Management, a leader in B
to B sales effectiveness. Let's get started.

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Hello and welcome to the Audible Ready
Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel Kletmoller.

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Thank you for joining us today.
Joining me for our conversation is Diana Shelley.

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Hi, Diana, Hi there,
Rachel. This is Diana's debut on

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the Audible Ready Sales podcast. Que
the drum roll, Papa. We're so

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happy to have her with us.
Diana is a facilitator at Force Management,

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and I've spoken with her several times
over these past couple of months, and

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she really is passionate about helping sellers
excel at their craft. And so today

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we're going to talk about some of
those soft skills that can help you as

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a salesperson. These are the things
that are often missed or you know,

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they may be not the main thing
in your traditional sales trainings, but they

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can really make a difference in your
conversations. Maybe we call them a soft

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communication skills, Diana. Let's just
start a little bit and talk a little

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bit about why these are portant and
the difference that they can make. I

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like that you call them self communication
skills, Rachel. But while the word

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is soft in the Senate's right,
one of the biggest mistakes the seller can

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make is to really underestimate the power
of these skills. Solf. Communication skills

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are an integral people asset for organizations, and because there's been emphasis traditionally on

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hard skills and job related skills,
these are typically missed and high or even

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developing individuals. However, I would
say that we're starting to see a shift

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in trend and then recognize more as
key traits and skills, and because we're

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seeing adults training and development programs starting
to seek ways to incorporate them in to

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their program because they're seeing the importance
of these in the interaction between certainly sells

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people and their customers. But when
we tap into these, we place ourselves

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in the best position to close the
deal. Yeah, because great selling is

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really great communication. You cannot be
a good seller if you're not able to

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communicate well. And all of these
things make a difference. So let's run

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through some of these soft skills how
those of you listening as salespeople can execute

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them in your meetings even this week. A lot of that these skills can

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help you, particularly in those early
meetings when you haven't established a relationship.

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When we spoke before this recording today, you talked a little bit about reading

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the room, emotional awareness. Let's
start there and talk a little bit about

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what the goal is here as salespeople. What is being emotionally aware? Well,

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you mentioned the word rachel early in
meetings, and I think when we

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talk about emotional awareness, that's so
important because I read a stat recently that

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ninety three percent of communication is nonverbal. That means these soft communication skills,

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this emotional awareness of reading the room
validates that the importance of that overwhelming percentage

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because the spoken word only accounts for
seven percent of communication, basically seven percent

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of the truth in that moment.
So what can we do as sellers with

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emotional awareness? Right? We need
to watch for typical behavioral movements early,

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so that when we see a shift, we immediately can recognize that shift and

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double down as to why we're identifying
something that might be uncharacteristic or maybe that

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shift reveals that the customer is uncomfortable
in the moment, and if we're not

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being emotionally aware, we're going to
miss that. And that's a for us.

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Now, if we're not in person, which happens a lot, and

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we're only on the phone, we
can listen for tone inflection as well as

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moments of silence, because that's also
part of those nonverbal cues. But one

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example I like to give of reading
the room is we can now pivot the

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conversation where it needs to go based
on the conversation or these nonverbal cues.

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So what made prompt my pivot might
be someone could join the meeting late,

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the priorities change at the last minute, or since we last spoke, or

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there's an urgent matter that's come up
that I need to address that was previously

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unknown. So the salesperson who can
be what we call it at forced management

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audible, ready to read that room
and see that behavioral shift in body language

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or even hear that change in tone
is the seller that will excel in their

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career because they're meeting the client where
they are and then they're able to take

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them on the journey. And that
shift causes us to focus on their agenda

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instead of ours and lets them know
we're there to solve a problem and not

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just all a deal. Now we're
working together to collaboratively solve their problem.

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Yeah, that emotional awareness is so
important, and as you said, it's

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really important for us to sales people
to have empathy for others, identifying with

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solving others problem. I find a
definition on emotional awareness and it said it's

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emotional awareness is awareness of your actions
and feelings how they affect those around you.

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It also means that you value others, listens value others, and you

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want to listen to their wants and
needs be able to empathize or identify with

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them on different levels. And that's
what it is. We talk a lot

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about reading the room when we're talking
about great discovery and don't just push for

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next steps if they don't make sense. I kind of chuggled a little bit

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with your nonverbal point about how much
communication is nonverbal, and you know that

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all that goes into like your zoom
meetings, are you looking at the camera

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You're sending over communication just as you're
sitting there listening. I had a professor

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one time when I was doing my
grad school work in communication is a small

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group of people. It's like maybe
twelve people, and he stopped the class

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Diana, and looked at me and
said, your nonverbals are amazing. And

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I was like, oh my god, what does that even mean? Hey?

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And what signals have I been sending
in this real? Wise? Up

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there talking? But I digress.
I digress well. Ever since then,

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I'm very cognizant of my own non
verbals. But what tips do you have

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for salespeople to help them be more
emotionally aware as they conduct their calls?

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Well? As you share, Rachel, the definition of emotional awareness not only

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is being aware of what's happening,
but realizing how our actions may then affect

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someone around us. So, as
a seller, I need to be assessing

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if my pace in moving the conversation
forward is too fast, especially if the

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customer is still contemplating something I shared, Because moving ahead of them means right

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that I've I've left them behind in
the sales process and we're not aligned and

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I could miss something, and since
most communication is nonverbal, I need to

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also be flexible and taking what I'm
either seeing or hearing you mentioned zoom meetings,

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and adjust my behavior to stay aligned
with the customer. So the definition,

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as you said, also includes listening
and then empathizing. And many times

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in the sales cycle, I've seen
a seller here's something such as a pain

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point from a client, and they'll
respond with something like uh huh, and

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then they immediately moved past the comment
without either acknowledging or even empathizing, and

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they're pushing forward basically with their own
agenda. And this tells the customer we

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didn't hear what they said, and
we certainly didn't empathize with what they're going

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through. It's such a good point. I also was reprimanded on that point.

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I was in a sales call and
at the manager, I was with

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the person's set of value driver,
and I moved on to my next question,

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which I thought I was seeking a
little do He was like, if

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they say a value driver, never
move on. It's so easy to do

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so, Rachel, it is so
it's as you said, like and I

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mentioned earlier, are part of this
is really executing good discoveries, you can

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be in sync with your buyer.
We talk about buyer alignment all the time,

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and we have a lot of great
content and executing great discovery. Be

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sure to check out the show notes
of this podcast. I've linked several of

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those resources there. But as you
know, in discovery, it's not just

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what you say, it's also how
you manage the conversation you talk. You

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know, that's also about moving on
managing the conversation. So yeah, I

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think you know you mentioned managing the
conversation. I think that's important is being

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present in the actual conversation because sometimes
again we have our list of what we

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want to accomplish, and I have
a couple of ideas that I can share

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before we wrap up. On one
way that I stayed in tune with a

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conversation because you could miss something that's
changed. One of the things I also

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used that worked really really well for
me when I was selling out on the

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field. It's I called it the
power of the pause. It was one

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way to stay active in the listening. But also if I saw or heard

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something that caused the client to be
uncomfortable in the moment, I need to

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explore that otherwise I may think I
have a deal that I really don't,

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and again I'm leaving the client behind. So as a seller, right we

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all tend to be more outspoken,
comfortable speaking. But what we do is

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we sabotage the silence by speaking too
soon. And that's why I call it

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the power of the pause, giving
them pause in space to think or speak.

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And the moment I try to sabotage
that silence and give a suggestion is

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the moment I don't hear their vantage
point which is always going to be better,

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or give them time to expand their
mindset. I have to give them

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that space, and it's in that
pause where amazing things happen. We don't

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want to take the pressure off too
soon because they're thinking. Another important thing

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I think that we can do as
salespeople is have a willingness to have hard

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conversations where we get to the truth
or root of the issue. Because most

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people will say they listen well,
but active listening means I'm listening for something

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that's causing impact enough so that that
customer will actually get off go. Because

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staying a status quo in a deal
is one of the number one reasons we

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can lose a deal. So they
we may have on the flip side a

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client that gives a whole litany of
issues or objectives, but it's the key

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sales reps that can actively listen and
prioritize to figure out what are the one

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or two things that the client is
going to spend time, money, and

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resources on in order to move forward, because the rest can just be noise,

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at least at that moment. But
the problem is most reps are so

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focused on what they're going to say
next it prevents them from actively listening.

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So I used to use a format
I called above the line below the line.

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I'd either draw a line on a
piece of paper or use one note

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any other software program, and I
wrote above the line what I had to

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get before I got off the call, something critical that I needed to know

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from myself and my team, my
organization, and so I knew that those

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were key things that were very very
important. And then below the line I

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would put things that might be nice
to get or understand, but if I

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didn't get them on the call,
it wasn't critical. I could schedule them

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for the next call. But that
allowed me to stay in the moment and

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actively listen with the client, but
still look down as I took notes and

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check my lists to make sure I
got what I needed, because that's just

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as important. So it's not about
this data jump for the customer, but

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expanding the mindset which creates value in
order to get that next conversation. That's

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really a really great point because you
want to be in the conversation. So

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if you have a good way to
take the notes, that kind of takes

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your mind off of capturing everything.
I mentioned zoom calls earlier. You talked

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about it a little bit, We
talked about nonverbal communication, but I want

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to hit that point again because we
know the majority of communication is nonverbal and

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so many of us are doing are
these sales calls over Zoom, Google me,

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whatever the technology is, and it
just adds another air into how we

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communicate. So what are some of
those advantages we can give ourselves as sellers

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when it comes to this virtual communication
nonverbal communication. Well, I think whatever

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we can and you touched on this, get on a zoom call instead of

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calling the client on our cell phone. And sometimes we get very comfortable,

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especially with an existing customer, where
we just text or on our cell phone.

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But then we're missing those nonverbal cues
that the client may be sharing no

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matter how long we've known them with
their body language. So this allows you

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to also be audible ready because now
I'm seeing a shift and I can meet

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the client where they are and dig
into as you mentioned earlier, critical discovery,

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dig into the pain points, dig
into the objectives. The other thing

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I would say is, as much
as you can try to separate meetings,

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don't try to have one meeting at
the executive level and one with someone at

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the technical level at the same time. If you can help it, it's

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going to be harder to read the
room because these audiences have very different pains

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and goals they're trying to achieve.
As long as I gave the why I

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needed to separate meetings in how it
helped them. Actually, because most of

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the time an executive level person doesn't
want to hear the technical nuances and vice

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versa, we're not connecting with them. So as long as I told them

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why it would help and stated my
case, I almost always got the yes

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on that so that I could achieve
what I needed to. One of my

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favorite sayings is you have not because
you asked not, so ask for what

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you need. It's going to set
you up for success. And then the

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other tip I would say is give
a short recap of your conversation after you

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have it, because that helps.
At force management, we call it the

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mantra. But this works especially well
for clients that I would say are a

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visual instead of auditory. And so
you know, then I asked them,

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I invite them to work with me
on what I may have missed because anytime

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we have a working document with the
customer, we're creating collaboration, we're ensuring

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alignment, and we're giving this working
partnership if you will, to achieve their

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goals. Yeah, how you own
that next step after the meeting and how

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you follow can really make or break
future conversations. We have a great podcast

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on that. I think I've called
it What We Heard. I'll put it

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in the show notes. It's all
about like your follow up, helping you

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craft that email, the walk around
slides, whatever you want to do,

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but another critical component of communication and
also something that helps facilitate additional conversations.

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I love the point you made about
separate meetings, Diana. We talk a

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lot about not trying to do too
much in the meeting, and as it

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relates to this topic, if you
try to do too much, it's going

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to be harder for you to communicate
effectively because everything's going to get modeled.

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You're talking to different audiences, different
stakeholders, different needs, wants, points

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of contention, all of those things
can really make it more difficult for you

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to execute some of these skills that
we've talked about today. So true,

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okay, so great tips here for
those of you listening. I love this

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podcast because I think Diana gave many
of you out there things you can do

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today on your calls. Do them, let us know how it works,

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and leave us with some final thoughts
here Diana for us to take with us

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this week. So, studies show
that emotional awareness can actually be improved,

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and there's quite a few resources out
there to help. So don't mistake this

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for a skill that's not important,
and always seek to improve it because it's

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what helped me to excel as a
seller and achieve right quote a year over

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year. And I had a boss
that once used to say, you seem

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to notice everything. And what I
would leave you with is everybody movement,

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every tone, every word that a
client says is a key data point.

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It's up to us to put the
pieces of the puzzle together to display the

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picture and the outcome that they're looking
to achieve. That's great, and that's

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the bottom line. Thank you for
joining me for this conversation, Diana,

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sure, thanks for having me,
Rachel, Yes, and I will let

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all the listeners know that Diana had
great nonverbal communication as as we recorded this

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podcast. Thank Rachel. All right, Thank you Diana, and thank you

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to all of you for listening to
the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. At Force

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00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:11.399
Management, we're focused on transforming sales
organizations into elite teams. Are proven methodologies,

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deliver programs that build company alignment and
fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your

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teams the ability to execute the growth
strategy at the point of sale. Our

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strength is our experience. The proof
is in our results. Let's get started.

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Visit us at force management dot com. You've been listening to the Audible

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Ready podcast. To not miss an
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