The secret to influence probably isn't what you're expecting. Powerful influence is a result of the way you listen. You can be a master of influence if you know how to listen to unlock this powerful influencing force. Your current listening behaviors make it unnecessarily hard for yourself. The listening behaviors that reduce your effectiveness include: allowing other thoughts to clutter your mind, thinking about what you're going to say next while the other person is still talking, trying to rush the prospect, and you losing focus. These bad listening behaviors eliminate your persuasion potential.

When you listen for understanding you increase your persuasiveness. Effective listening requires a clear purpose for what you're listening for. If you're going to understand the prospect and their needs there are definite questions you need answers to.

Track and measure your progress as you improve your listening skills. One measure of your progress is obtaining the answers to the key questions you need to. A more important key measurement is your ability to get the prospect to open up and reveal the emotional reason for making a buying decision. Listening builds rapport and trust quicker than anything else and that's why it's such a powerful persuasion skill. When you get your prospect to tell you about themselves they begin to trust you. As their trust in you builds they become convinced that you have their best interests in mind.

Not only is effective listening is a powerful influencing technique, but it's a no pressure influencing technique too. While you're listening and questioning to understand you're helping the prospect to uncover and discover. They begin to reach their own conclusions guided by your questions that help them to focus and expand beyond their current understanding of their situation.

Before you meet with your prospect prepare yourself for effective listening. Take a breather and clear your mind. Make sure both you and your prospect know exactly why you're meeting and be clear about what you need to learn about your prospect. Frequently when you meet with prospects you're worried about being rejected when you should be focused on listening for exclusion. The reason you want to focus on exclusion is so that you can increase your insurance sales by focusing on obtaining qualified prospects for your business.

Recognize that there is important information in seemingly irrelevant details. Sometimes the prospect may veer off on a tangent that doesn't seem pertinent, yet they're sharing that information for a reason and that reason may lead to the emotional hot button that motivates them to buy now. Don't be afraid to take notes about what the prospect is telling you. For other ideas to increase your insurance sales success use the tools below.

About the Author

Author: Cheryl Clausen can help you get where you want to be. Enhance your Sales Techniques get her free analysis. Increase your sales today through Sales Coaching, look here.