One skill my students learn in 3 Days to Cash is Ask, Tell, Ask. The essential component of this important technique is listening. You will never know what you can do for your customer if you don’t listen!
There is a great book by Laura Whitworth, Henry Kinsye-House, and Phil Sandahl entitled “Co-Active Coaching: New Skills for Coaching People Toward Success in Work and Life.”
In it, the three levels of listening are explained:
Level I is listening to yourself and the blast of stimuli. It’s mostly noisy and reactive.
Level II is conversation and connection. It’s very much in the moment.
Level III is a calm, almost omniscient level or listing where you can hear and understand, and sometimes anticipate, all of the obvious and subtle signals and zero in on the essence of what’s being said.
You can read more about levels of listening and how they play into compassion in my book “Yes! Energy: The Equation to Do Less, Make More.”
So let me ask you again. ARE you a good listener?