Concert List

Listen, Listen, Listen To Your Prospect-Many years ago John Burroughs, a naturalist, one summer evening was walking through a crowded park. Above the sounds of city life he heard the song of a bird. He stopped and listened! Those with him had not heard it. He looked around. No one else had noticed it. It bothered him that everyone should miss something so beautiful. He took a coin from his pocket and flipped it into the air. It struck the pavement with a ring, no louder than the song of the bird. Everyone turned; they could hear that! It is difficult to separate from all the sounds of city traffic the song of a bird. But you can hear it. You can hear it plainly if you train yourself to listen for it.

One of our sons has always been interested in radio. When he was a little fellow, his Christmas present was a very elementary radio construction set. As he grew, and as we could afford it, and as he could earn it, he received more sophisticated equipment. There have been many times over the years, some very recently, when I have sat with him as he talked with someone in a distant part of the world. I could hear static and interference and catch a word or two, or sometimes several voices at once. Yet he can understand, for he has trained himself to tune out the interference.

When prospecting you need to focus on the prospect intently or you may miss some form of communication that may be vital to the success of the conversation. The most effective communication breaks down into three critical areas, the words we use, our tone of voice, and our body language. Which do you think is most important? As ingredients of a successful communication it looks like this, words 7%, tone 38%, body language 55%.

Since most of our prospecting is done by phone it is critical that we focus on the words being used by the prospect but more important is the tone of voice. We must listen well enough to understand how they feel about certain things. Are they really motivated? What is their true why for wanting a change. This will likely require that we be in a quite place where we won’t be distracted or wherever we can best focus on the prospect and how he/she is using words to express himself. We must tune out the busyness around us so we can hear the song of a bird.