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Active Listening Key To Landing High-Paying Clients

This article is more than 4 years old.

What can a mediator of gang disputes teach you about attracting high-paying clients? The answer is a great deal, if you are willing to listen.

Your prospects are talking, but are you really listening?

During conversations with a prospect, the goal should be to monopolize the listening. My rule of thumb is to listen 80 percent of the time and talk 20 percent.

There are science-based steps for success when it comes to listening carefully and responding appropriately to prospects.

“It turns out from neuroscience that once we have been listened to, we are far more receptive to listening to the other party,” says a mediator and negotiator that has mediated and negotiated over 2,500 times.

“Some think that winning is binary,” says Michael Gregory. “That is, we want to win 100% and the make sure the other party loses. Others see winning as a compromise and resolving a conflict with closure.”

Gregory is a Qualified Mediator with the Minnesota Supreme Court and a board member of the Minnesota State Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Section. He is an expert on conflict resolution professionally and as an active volunteer in housing court, conciliation court, public housing and neighborhood disputes, between gangs and after racially charged police shootings.

Listening expert Gregory, the author of 11 books, shared a recent example:

“After interviewing one side before a mediation, I had to tell a board of directors that if they wanted me to mediate, they needed to remove the CEO from the team and ensure that the CEO did not interfere if an agreement could be reached,” said Gregory. “The CEO wanted to win 100%. There was nearly $1 billion at stake. Corporate counsel asked me who would tell that to the CEO. I said that was not up to me. Two weeks later we got the green light to proceed with the mediation and the CEO was not part of their team. It was scheduled for 8 hours with 24 participants. After 12 hours we reached an agreement.”

By listening actively with summaries and paraphrasing it was possible for the parties to actually empathize with one another. That’s a great strategy with prospects too.

“With the use of good open-ended questions, it is possible to really listen and work towards conflict resolution. In high stakes negotiations and mediations listening is one of the most valuable tools for your toolbox,” says Gregory.

In mediation parties need to listen to each other and to summarize what the other party had stated before responding. The same is true with conversations with a prospect. Active listening is critical. 

(Mea culpa: I am not perfect at this and I am working on it. Often times my enthusiasm gets the better of me and I talk when I should be listening. As the old adage states, they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Listening proves you care.)

“By the parties listening actively and the mediator asking open ended questions, the parties began to look at their own positions more broadly and realize that they each had additional concerns regarding their positions,” says Gregory.  “For example, perceptions of various stakeholders on any agreement, longer term relationships, having closure now versus spending millions to go to court and not knowing finalized results for possibly three to five years.”

Perceptions are also the key to losing or winning that high-paying client.

“Do you want to win? Listen actively and you may be surprised at what you learn,” says Gregory.

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