The Art Of Listening

Morning, quite sometime since my last posting. Very busy with business trips, from BJ-Shanghai-Ningbo, and now back to Beijing.

Just want to share this topic. I was conducting a whole day interview, 10 candidates for the position of sales, and I find it very odd that most candidates think sales is about how long you can talk, and well you can talk and talking non-stop. Yes, conversation is important, content of the topic you talk about is important. Sales have to know how to act, how to respond to the change of the environment you are in, the person/people you are talking to, and we need skills for that. It is not just a matter of whether you are able to talk or not. But that is not my point for now.
I think the art of listening is very important. Every body just talk and when they don't listen, then, will there be a conclusion? Will there be an opportunity to offer a solution if everybody just talk and no one listens?
In today's world, everybody seems to be rushing for everything, that is understandable, but people forget, that people would like to talk to someone who listen to me, and able to hear what they are saying, understand and act on them. It is not just one way communication.
Some people pretend to listen and they never take any action or care to understand further what is the need of the other party. This is not going to be helpful.
Say for example, if a businessman tries to sell something to the market without listening what the market wants, will he be successful? If he wants to sell something special in the market, he still need to find out what is the best way to sell them? Packaging? Price? Specs? Location? There are many things you need to consider, and this is part of listening skills, are they not? It is part of Marketing, you need to survey, and how you conduct your market survey, you ask, you talk and you LISTＥＮ　ｔｏ　ｔｈｅ　ｎｅｅｄｓ，　ａｎｄ　ｙｏｕ　ｒｅｆｌｅｃｔ　ｔｈａｔ　ｉｎ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｒｅｐｏｒｔ，　ｄｏｎ＇ｔ　ｙｏｕ？
Think about thａｔ？