Umm, could you repeat that?

Data from Gong shows that the most successful sales reps speak for 43% of the sales conversation. This insight reinforces what we know about successful selling: get the buyer talking.

But forget about your listening percentage, how’s your listening quality?

It’s obvious why listening is so hard: it’s hard to slow down and focus when everything around you is moving fast.

What’s not so obvious is how to improve.

Think of improving your listening as strengthening a muscle. (Add it to the list!!!)

Work on that muscle by creating a trigger word – a word you’ll use to help you recenter when your attention drifts during interactions.

Choose a word like "focus" or something as banal as "listen."

Post your trigger word everywhere in your workspace to see the visual cue that reminds you to turn off the noise and turn on your brain.

Author, speaker, and thinker Simon Sinek offers a killer line about listening in this video.

Simon says (ha) that the classic playback of repeating what someone says is a technique that might not get the job done these days. He posits the key to active listening is making your audience feel heard.

Focus on that, and you won’t be dwelling on what you need to say next in meetings.