Active listening in sales: The secret to closing more deals

In sales, we often focus on perfecting our pitch, highlighting product features, and handling objections. But one of the most powerful skills for closing deals isn’t about talking—it’s about listening.

Active Listening is more than just hearing words. It helps build trust, uncover real pain points, and create meaningful conversations that drive sales forward.

This article explores why Active Listening matters, how it impacts sales success, and actionable techniques to implement it in every conversation.

The discovery call that shifted my perspective on active litening

I had scheduled a 45-minute Discovery & Demo meeting with a prospect through cold email outreach. The conversation extended to 1 hour and 15 minutes, with two participants from the prospect’s side. Here’s what Avoma’s talk-time analysis revealed:

I spoke for 60% of the time and listened for 40%.

While tracking listening time is important, the real question is—how well did I listen? This is the difference between passive hearing and Active Listening.

What is active selling in sales?

Active listening in sales is the practice of fully concentrating, understanding, responding, and remembering what a prospect or customer is saying. It goes beyond simply hearing words—it involves interpreting tone, emotions, and intent to foster meaningful conversations and build meaningful relationships.

The importance of active listening in sales

Successful sales conversations require a balance between talking and listening. While you must articulate your product’s value, you also need to ensure your prospect feels heard.

Active Listening enables salespeople to craft tailored solutions and earn their prospect’s trust.

If you’re in sales, you’ve likely heard about Active Listening before. To clarify, Active Listening is not just hearing words—it’s about showing your customers that you genuinely care and want to help.

According to Merriam-Webster, Active Listening means "to hear what someone said and understand that it is serious, important, or true."

In sales, this translates to:

• Listening attentively to identify customer pain points.
• Understanding their challenges and objectives.
• Responding thoughtfully and empathetically.

This article is about why Active Listening is crucial in remote selling and how to improve your Active Listening skills.

How active listening helps sales teams

1. Builds rapport and trust

Here’s the feedback I received at the end of my extended discovery call—a clear sign of the rapport we had built:

"I appreciate how well you understood our challenges. This was one of the most insightful sales conversations we’ve had."

Without rapport, earning buyers’ trust and closing deals becomes difficult. However, many sales teams today focus heavily on automation and efficiency, often neglecting the human side of selling.

Active Listening helps salespeople build stronger connections by enhancing the relevance of conversations. For example, during a product demo, you can pick up on subtle cues to tailor the presentation to the prospect’s specific needs—rather

2. Improves win rate and save time

In our age of constant communication and a short span of attention, genuine listening is a rare commodity and a great gift because you are giving your valuable asset: your attention.

When you give your undivided attention, prospects feel heard, respected, and valued. They offer fewer and softer objections. You gain a reputation as a trustworthy solution provider and have greater confidence that you and your solution would address their needs.

With Active Listening, you save time and frustration by understanding if there is a right “fit” between what the prospect needs and the solution you offer, which results in more sales in less time.

Why is active listening even more critical in remote selling?

1. Limited audience interaction and increased multi-tasking

The shift to remote selling via video conferencing has changed the dynamics of sales conversations. Selling to a group of decision-makers virtually is a different challenge altogether.

A Corporate Visions survey found that:

• 70% of salespeople believe remote selling is less effective than in-person selling.
• 89% feel audience interaction would improve if everyone turned on their cameras, yet 82% hesitate to ask prospects to do so.
• 67% of sales reps rarely turn on their own cameras.

Without in-person engagement and body language cues, Active Listening becomes even more essential.

2. Lack of (personal) relationship building

Face-to-face meetings allow for casual conversations that help establish common ground.

• You can learn about a prospect’s hobbies or personal interests.
• You can gauge their emotions better through body language and facial expressions.

Virtual interactions don’t create the same level of emotional connection. Without these relationship-building benefits, Active Listening becomes a critical tool for establishing rapport and trust.

How to improve Active Listening in sales?

Active Listening is more than just hearing—it’s about fully focusing, comprehending, and responding thoughtfully. Here are some Active Listening techniques to implement and improve your interpersonal skills in action:

• Let them talk more
• Listen with the intent to understand
• Focus on the conversation and the people
• Avoid the temptation to interrupt
• Repeat and paraphrase what you heard
• Clarify your understanding with relevant follow-up questions
• Make demo pitches interactive.

1. Let them talk more

The first step of Active Listening is—let the other person talk. You need to resist talking about yourself. It's not about you; it's about them. They will appreciate the opportunity to participate, and your interaction will feel like a collaborative conversation, not a sales pitch.

When they start talking, resist the impulse to share your stories or give advice—unless, of course, they specifically ask for it.

If the other person is not talking much, take them away from the surface-level conversation to deeper levels. Prompt them with more questions to encourage them to share more:

• “How was it for you when you…?”
• “And what happened next?”
• “Could you tell me a bit more about that?”

The biggest mistake you can make is shifting the focus to yourself, your company, or making assumptions about what the prospect needs without asking. This self-centric approach is a guaranteed way to ensure your prospect never wants to have a conversation with you again.

2. Listen with the intent to understand

Active Listening starts with listening with the intent to understand. This is easier said than done. Too often, salespeople are waiting for their turn to talk or thinking about what to say next instead of truly listening to the prospect. They're looking for specific words or phrases that cue them to start pitching their script.

The best salespeople listen differently. Instead of focusing on pitching the product, they focus on truly understanding the other person—it all starts with intention.

They don't just follow a script; they actively listen to the words, tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. This kind of listening makes a huge difference, encouraging prospects to open up and fostering trust and commitment.

3. Focus on the conversation and the people

Focusing on the conversation and the people means no multi-tasking.

The word active means you are genuinely engaged in listening. Throw out the script, stop worrying about what you're going to say next, and let the conversation flow naturally.

Avoid distractions like taking excessive notes or—worst of all—checking your phone. Focusing means being all ears.

Show that you're actively listening by:

• Maintaining eye contact to strengthen nonverbal communication.
• Being aware of body language—lean in when listening.
• Nodding when you agree or understand something.
• Smiling to create a friendly, open atmosphere.

You can use tools like Avoma to take notes automatically, ensuring you stay engaged without missing key information.

4. Avoid the temptation to interrupt

After your prospect finishes speaking, count to three before replying or asking another question. The last thing you want to do is interrupt them.

Some people tend to impatiently finish the other person’s sentence. While slow talking can sometimes be frustrating, resist the urge to interrupt.

Even if you appear to be listening, you might actually be thinking about your next response instead of fully processing their words. Train yourself to pause and think. This will help you stay focused on the prospect and their situation.

5. Repeat and paraphrase what you heard

After a prospect shares something important about their challenges or goals, repeat what they just said. This allows them to confirm or clarify their statement.

However, be careful not to make them doubt your understanding. Instead of repeating word-for-word, paraphrase concisely:

• Summarizing makes conversations shorter and builds trust.
• Avoid oversimplifying—leaving out important details can reduce credibility.

The best approach is to retell their story in your own words, focusing on the feelings and emotions behind their words—not just the facts. This demonstrates that you understand their situation and can empathize with their struggles.

You can use phrases like:

• “It sounds like …”
• “What I’m hearing is …”
• “You seem a bit …”

Convincing your prospects that they’ve been heard and understood is the most important outcome of this step.

6. Clarify your understanding with relevant follow-up questions

After sharing what you've heard and understood, the next step is to ask a relevant follow-up question.

Although you should avoid frequent interruptions, if you’re unclear about something, ask for clarification. If you want to learn more, ask follow-up questions.

To confirm understanding, use:

• “Let’s make sure I hear you correctly.”
• “Let me make sure I’ve got this right.”
• “These are the main points I’ve heard you make so far.”

To encourage deeper conversation, ask open-ended questions:

• “Tell me more about…”
• “Why…”
• “How…”
• “What…”

Avoid close-ended questions like:

• “Does it ...”
• “Are you …”
• “Is it….”
• “Did you …”

Open-ended questions keep the conversation flowing and uncover more about the prospect’s goals, challenges, and current plans.

7. Make demo pitches interactive

Let’s face it—slide presentations can be boring. Make sure your prospect experiences, feels, and sees your product or service as soon as possible.

Incorporate as much interaction as your product allows and give your client ample opportunities to provide feedback.

Maintain a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of presenting product information to asking for feedback:

• For every two or three benefits you present, ask one question to ensure you're on the right track.

Asking questions keeps prospects engaged and confirms that the information is relevant to their needs.

Pay attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues:

• Do they seem interested, confused, or bored?
• Adapt your presentation accordingly.

This approach allows you to course-correct if needed while maintaining the right balance between talking and listening.

Putting Active Listening in action

So, are you ready to take action and become an active listener?

While Active Listening is a relatively simple skill to understand, it is difficult to master. Using the phrases shared earlier into practice can help you become a proactive and empathetic listener. And with practice, you can excel in this skill, and eventually, it becomes natural to you.

As you keep practicing, you'll know when you've learned to do it effectively. Your prospects will also tell you if you've understood them correctly, if they felt heard, etc.

You can use tools like Avoma to practice and get better at Active Listening. Since Avoma records, transcribes and analyzes sales calls, it becomes easier to review your past calls.

When you review your past calls, you'll often find out sometimes you completely misunderstood the prospect's question or information they shared. And that ended up taking the conversation in a different direction, and either the prospect didn't understand you, or they lost the interest.

In Avoma, you can tag another salesperson or manager and comment at the point of conversation to get their feedback. This process will uncover many missed opportunities and enable you to get the opportunity back on track by apologizing, and clarifying what you missed.

Final thoughts

As John Doerr writes, sales reps who don't actively listen:

• Miss the opportunity to build rapport with prospects and customers
• Fail to effectively uncover buyer needs
• Don’t instill enough confidence in the prospect that they understand their world

In today's world, where buyers can research any company or product online, salespeople must quickly establish their expertise and build trust in every interaction.

Active Listening enables salespeople to:

• Start more genuine conversations
• Uncover challenges and goals
• Handle objections effectively
• Close deals more successfully

Ultimately, Active Listening benefits both the buyer and the seller—especially when it helps discover alignment between the buyer’s needs and how your product or service addresses them.

We'd like you to try Avoma and see it for yourself. See how you can improve your Active Listening skills using Avoma's AI analysis. You can try it free – no credit card required.