An elderly couple was celebrating their sixtieth anniversary. The couple had married as childhood sweethearts and had moved back to their old neighborhood after they retired. Holding hands, they walked back to their old school. It was not locked, so they entered, and found the old desk they'd shared, where Andy had carved "I love you, Sally ."    On their way back home, a bag of money fell out of an armored car, practically landing at their feet. Sally quickly picked it up and, not sure what to do with it, they took it home. There, she counted the money-fifty thousand dollars! Andy said, "We've got to give it back." Sally said, "Finders keepers." She put the money back in the bag and hid it in their attic.    The next day, two police officers were canvassing the neighborhood looking for the money, and knocked on their door. "Pardon me, did either of you find a bag that fell out of an armored car yesterday?" Sally said, "No". Andy said, "She's lying. She hid it up in the attic. Sally said, "Don't believe him, he's getting senile"   The agents turned to Andy and began to question him. One said: "Tell us the story from the beginning." Andy said, "Well, when Sally and I were walking home from school yesterday ...." The first police officer turned to his partner and said, "We're outta here!"

In the foregoing scenario, if the officers were earning bonus based on a percentage of money recovered,  do you think they just blew some major money? What mistake did they make? Why did they do it?

Can you imagine we who are doing business from home, making similar mistakes? Well, it is actually done daily by many and if that includes you, you will continue to do it only until you finish reading this post. 

The key to making any sale is to listen while the customer tells the what they want to buy, how much they want and when they are ready to close the deal. That's right, all of these things are talked about during the average sales dialog. The problem arises because most of us sales folks are not listening. We get caught up in meaning machinations about nothing and usually, we walk away from the sales opportunity with the very same thing: NOTHING.

While all the above lends itself more toward person to person public type sales, we who do business from home commit our own inattentive wanderings also and we do it from the comfort of our home. How about not using an autoresponder to follow up on an inquiry or not picking up the phone to say hello to a new prospect or writing a personal note or email. We are trying to recruit the person but in a two-way conversation/interview, we do all the talking. Do we fully understand the idea of building relationships and trust with our prospects? You say yes? I say no, especially if you have not a single personal picture anywhere online and you have not embraced the notion of branding yourself.

Listening is a crucial part of doing business from home. The successful home business person listens to customers and prospects; constantly gleaning information on how well the selling process is going. The better able you are prepared to listen to all sources around you, the better prepared you are to elicit the kind of responses that make doing business from home exactly what you want it to be for you and yours.

Perhaps you have a n experience where active listening was the key to closing the sale that you wish to relate in the comment section? Feel free to do so as we all seek to improve our skills

Olson Rogers