Why Am I Talking?
"If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own."
Henry Ford
If you do a quick search on the internet, you'll find hundreds of quotes about listening more than you speak, or about having two eyes, two ears, and only one mouth. And they all sound wise without really explaining why.
Talking, talking, talking ...
When you go to market with something that really excites you and that fills you with genuine enthusiasm, it's so tempting to spend all your time telling everyone how great it is and what all the features are and how clever it is to do all those wonderful things.
I only need to be asked "So what do you do?", and I have to really make an effort not to launch into a 10 minute monologue, guaranteed to bore the recipient into a coma.
If you're doing a product or service demo, it's fine to maybe offer up some ideas and features your prospective client may not have thought about. But making them sit through an hour long demonstration when only a quarter of what you said was of any interest to them is inconsiderate at the very least.
Lessons in listening
Here's a couple of things I've learnt:
If I give a brief outline of what I do and then turn the question around, I'm far more likely to hear a person talk about their own experiences and maybe even some problems they are having. By listening to them and prompting them, I'm going to find out what they are interested in, what their business is about, and what's really not important to them. And even how I can help them.
Enthusiasm is infectious, so when you get into a positive conversation with someone, their brain starts to apply what you're telling them to their own situation. What a great way to pick up free advice on the world outside your own experience! You'd be amazed how many features of our software have been suggested by other people - and how many of our own ideas have taken a lower priority because nobody really needs them. Often, our ideas get changed and improved by listening to people who are trying to use our service for real-world activities we never considered.
I certainly know that when a service is feature-rich, a different set of those features is important to each customer - so I need to find out which before I start ploughing into all the rest unnecessarily.
I'm still passionate about what I do
If you're ever in conversation with me and I start letting my enthusiasm walk all over you - remind me what a very wise man once said :
"You're short on ears and long on mouth"
John Wayne
I will thank you for it and we'll probably have a far more interesting and productive conversation for both of us.
