Great Salespeople Don’t Just Listen. They Outlisten Everyone Else

Talk less. Listen more. Sell smarter.

Entrepreneurs’ Organization

This article was written by Ari Galper, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization member in Sydney. Galper is a best-selling author and leading authority on trust-based selling. He shares why the art of listening is a rare skill in today’s AI-centric world, and how you can build trust by improving your ability to truly hear your customers.

At the Fortuna One Summit in late September, I heard Steven Bartlett, host of The Diary of a CEO podcast, say something that stopped me in my tracks. Bartlett said his goal in business isn’t to outwork everyone, but instead to outlisten everyone. 

That single statement reveals that Bartlett has figured out what most business owners and their sales teams miss: Outlistening is rare. Because it’s rare, it builds trust faster than almost anything else. 

Bartlett shared that outlistening is one of the core pillars behind his success. 

The art of outlistening 

I’ve spent more than two decades teaching the importance of truly listening to your customer inside sales conversations. It still surprises me how few people do it.  

Most salespeople walk into a sales conversation already thinking about what you’re going to say next. You have several prepared answers in mind. So, you need listen only for a few buzzwords to determine which prepared answer best fits this particular prospect’s challenges. 

Does that sound familiar? Your prospect starts describing their situation, explaining specific pain points, but before they’ve even finished, the solution has already formed in your head, and you can’t wait to share it. The problem, in fact, is that you don’t wait to share it. 

In that moment, your prospect stops feeling heard and starts feeling sold to. They don’t feel unique and understood. Instead, they feel commonplace and ignored. That’s no way to start a respectful customer relationship. 

Why trust-based sales is key 

Trust-based selling works the other way around. You, the salesperson, slow down and ask a series of questions that take the conversation one level deeper. Then you do the rare thing that helps you outlisten all the other salespeople your prospect has ever encountered. You stay quiet long enough for the real answer to surface.  

When you stay silent, that’s when people tell you the truth about their problems, often speaking them aloud or admitting them to themselves for the first time.  

Skilled listening matters more now than it ever has. The world is inundated by AI-written emails, automated follow-ups, and messages that sound helpful but feel hollow. People can sense when they’re being processed rather than understood. Trust has sunk to an all-time low because of it.  

The irony is that the more automated the world becomes, the more valuable a human who genuinely listens becomes. Listening is a skill that AI can’t replicate. You can’t automate being heard. You can, however, make a choice to be the human who outlistens everyone else in your sphere. 

The question worth sitting with 

So, here’s the question worth sitting with before your next sales conversation: Are you listening to understand and uncover the nuance of this prospect’s situation, or are you just waiting for your turn to talk?  

You can tell you’re on the wrong side of outlistening if you are preparing your reply in your head as your prospect speaks instead of truly listening, absorbing, and considering what they are telling you in real time. You’ll know you’re doing it right when, mid-conversation, you realize the answer you had prepared in your mind needs to change to address the particular details you’ve just heard. 

I’m still working on this skill myself. My wife would probably tell you I have plenty of room to improve. But noticing your tendencies and working on becoming a better listener is a rare skill in this automated world, and one well worth improving.