Listen to “Problems”
I have a client who is the General Manager for a mid-sized corporation. Her direct reports are 15 division managers. We were talking about how best to run her manager meetings.  During the conversation, she noted that her managers seem to want to make her happy. As a result, in meetings, the conversations do not […]
Reflective Listening – Dealing with Anger
What do you do when dealing with someone who is angry? Anger is an emotion that we usually don’t want to deal with and when we see it in others, we typically tend to avoid it. Realistically however, anger, or its relatives (frustration and annoyance) will show up.  Whether in our families or at work, […]
Listening to Children can Help with Adults
One of my favorite examples of enrollment is with children. There are many different parenting styles. Some are based on pressure, threat or cajoling. Some on rewards. All are effective in different ways. I find the most effective though to be based on some type of enrollment – that is, talking to the child and […]
Receiving Feedback
In our current ongoing conversation about listening skills, I wanted to talk about feedback. We have been discussing listening in the context of enrollment. Our goal is to “enroll” others to join us in what we want – for them to be a new client, or continue as a satisfied client, to buy our […]
Listen and Hear
As we learn more about listening, in the context of enrollment, we must make the distinction between listening and hearing. What is the difference between “listening” and “hearing”? Webster’s defines “hear” as “perceive by means of he ear”; also “to be capable of perceiving sound.” “Hearing” – “the sense by which sound is perceived.” As […]
Listening – Complaints
As we are studying listening skills in the context of enrollment, I wanted to talk about a common business concern – customer complaints. In any business, there will be complaints. I work a lot with small business owners and among those who seem to get the most complaints are service providers, such as plumbers […]
Sell without “Selling,” Part V – Listen
Continuing my series on the Sell Without “Selling”, let’s discuss step #4, Listen. As a brief review, we define “enrollment” as a way of supporting another person by offering a product, a service, or simply a solution; a way of communicating with another person that inspires them to move forward with something they want by […]
What’s your agenda?
In our last blog post, on asking curious questions as a way to figure out what your potential client wants, we said, “Obviously, there are many different types of questions one can ask. What type of questions are best in this conversation? Enrollment questions are curious questions. You may think all questions are curious questions. […]
Sell Without Selling, Part IV – Asking Curious Questions
Continuing my series on the art of enrollment, we examine the practice of asking curious questions as a part of the enrollment process. To review, we define enrollment as a way of supporting another person by offering a product, service, or simply a solution; as a way of communicating with another person that inspires them […]
Sell Without “Selling,” Part III – Engage
In the first post in this series, I defined enrollment as a way of supporting another person by offering a product, a service, or simply a solution; as a way of communicating with another person that inspires them to move forward with something they want by using something you have. Enrollment is a way to […]