What's actually happening
You've done this job four hundred times. So when somebody starts describing their situation, you recognize it by the second sentence and your brain jumps straight to the answer. It's not laziness; it's competence, working against you.
From there you're not listening anymore. You're confirming. Every additional thing they say gets sorted into the box you already picked, and the parts that don't fit get quietly discarded.
What it costs you
You end up solving the problem they mentioned instead of the problem they have. Those are frequently different, and the gap between them is where the sale dies.
Worse: when you haven't understood what someone actually wants, the only thing left to talk about is price. That's not a pricing problem showing up. That's a listening problem, arriving late and wearing a pricing costume.
What it looks like
They say they need the deck replaced. You start pricing a deck. What they actually said, thirty seconds later, was that their daughter's wedding is in June and the deck can't look like that when two hundred people are standing on it.
You quoted lumber. They were buying a deadline. Those are not the same job, and they don't have the same price.
Where I'd start
Two habits, and neither takes extra time:
- Ask what happens if they do nothing. The answer tells you what's really driving this, and whether anything is.
- Before you quote, say the problem back in your own words and let them correct you. They will, and the correction is the whole job.
You're not trying to talk more. You're trying to be wrong out loud, early, while it's still cheap.