i don't know what to say..

"is there anything you want to talk about today?"

"umm...."

luckily (or maybe obliviously) of me, i've not really come across this situation unless i've brought it up first. maybe i'm just lucky to have been born a chatterbox, to want to talk about myself a lot more than listening to others.

talking is the first skill that a sales person (whether in my line or not) needs to pick up, or more accurately, to keep SOMEONE talking about something (whether that someone is you or not). creating rapport with someone you've not met before is not easy for many people.

this includes most singaporeans: we scowl as we commute in the morning and evening, we avert our eyes if we cross glances with someone walking in the opposite direction, we keep out heads buried in our smartphones as we wait for a more exciting event to happen; we barely smile if we're out on our own, much less make an effort to have a conversation with a stranger.

i've not really had a problem finding something to talk about, but what i've realized lately, is that my stories seem to be recycled - i hear something from someone and make use of it as if it were my own. i was urging my boyfriend today to tell a story about a secondary school friend of his and it dawned on me that it's not the first time i told him to repeat it to a different person.

getting on to the point - it's important to have an arsenal of questions at the ready in order to keep save a conversation from awkward silence.

but sometimes, pure listening works too.

people love talking about themselves (personal experience) and sometimes, that's the easiest way to find out more about the person that you're talking to. pay attention to the small details - what is that person talking about when he gets all excited, what subjects seem to be the most interesting? note the expressions, hear the change in pitch and speed of conversation, what areas of their lives are they the most concerned with.

sometimes it doesn't help to have just purely product knowledge - yes it helps, but ultimately, clients want something that best suit their needs and solves their problems.

in insurance, as i've mentioned before as one of my learning points, i want to learn to discern problems intrinsically and create effective solutions to these problems from my clients. as much as i'd like to talk about myself, it's important to know what's important to your clients, especially in comparison to  your own problems. and that is my job, in essence, to help people with their problems as they open themselves up to me.

the only way to reciprocate to someone who is openly volunteering sensitive information to me, is to listen in kind, take the time to analyze, reply honestly with my opinions, not being judgemental but offering the best of myself in the hopes of helping the person i'm talking to.

pondering,
Jessica