About

How the scoring works

People don't buy because they understand your business. They buy because they feel understood.

Weak communication tries to be understood. Selfless communication tries to understand.

The five steps

1. 1Discover the Customer's World

   Learn the situation the customer is actually living in — their context, history, constraints and the reason this conversation is happening now.

2. 2Identify the Emotional Problem

   Find the human cost underneath the practical request — the frustration, worry, embarrassment or pressure that makes this matter.

3. 3Reframe Around Outcomes

   Move the conversation from features and process to what the customer's world looks like once the problem is handled.

4. 4Build Trust Through Curiosity

   Earn trust by being genuinely interested. Curiosity, not persuasion, is what makes someone feel safe.

5. 5Help the Customer Make a Confident Decision

   Give clear, honest guidance and a specific next step so the customer can decide with confidence — never pressure.

The 100-point rubric

• Opening & Call Control

  Did the rep open in a way that lowered defenses, set a human frame, and keep the conversation moving without dominating it?

  10

• Discovery

  Did the rep learn the customer's actual situation — their world, context, constraints and history — rather than collecting order-taking data?

  15

• Emotional Problem

  Did the rep surface the human cost underneath the practical request — the frustration, worry, embarrassment or pressure driving it?

  15

• Outcomes

  Did the rep reframe the conversation around what the customer's life looks like after the problem is solved, instead of features and process?

  15

• Curiosity

  Did genuine curiosity build trust — real follow-up questions, listening that changed the next question, interest in the person?

  15

• Objections

  When hesitation appeared, did the rep treat it as information to understand rather than resistance to defeat?

  10

• Decision

  Did the rep help the customer reach a confident decision with a clear next step — guidance, not closing pressure?

  10

• Presence

  Did the rep sound like a calm, present human being the customer could trust?

  10

What the numbers mean

• 93–100Rare Air

  Sustained selfless communication. The customer would describe this as the best sales conversation they have had.

• 86–92Excellent

  Genuinely customer-centered throughout, with real emotional understanding and confident guidance.

• 80–85Strong

  Clearly better than a typical call. Real discovery and curiosity, with a layer of emotional understanding still missing.

• 71–79Competent

  A solid, professional, transactional conversation. This is where most reps land. Information was gathered; the customer was not deeply understood.

• 60–70Developing

  Some effort to connect, but the conversation stayed on the rep's agenda more than the customer's world.

• 0–59Needs Rebuild

  The conversation was about the business rather than the customer. The customer would not say they felt understood.

A competent, professional, transactional conversation lands in the mid-70s. That is the point: most calls collect information without making the customer feel understood.

What it will never do

• Reward pressure, scripts, objection crushing, urgency or closing tricks.
• Claim tone, pace, interruptions or silence — text cannot show those.
• Claim an emotion the customer never said out loud.
• Show you a quote that is not in the text you pasted.
• Save your conversation. Nothing is stored.

Selfless Communication is the teaching of Drew Larison, Five Door Media.