My tips for a common skill that seems to have become less common in recent years - much to all of our detriment.

Key Points

• Why listen?: Be loved to bits (4:54)
• Efficiency (6:48)
• Stay Present (8:55)
• Take Notes & Check (9:52)
• Patience! (11:00)
• Take a minute (12:35)
• Body language: It's kind of listening! (14:02)
• Not just for business (14:53)

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Transcript:

Ahhhhh listening. That thing you’re presumably doing right now. But are you really? Or are you driving in traffic, watching for errant drivers who obviously never passed a test and yet are driving a vehicle? Are you waiting for your child to come out of school, one ear on the podcast and the other listening for the school bell so you know to unlock the door. Are you washing dishes and half thinking about your list of things to do tomorrow?

Are you really listening?

I ask because I’ve had the pleasure of working with some new professionals and service providers in the last few weeks and I’ve noticed myself sometimes feeling annoyed, unsatisfied. Because I felt unheard. It left me thinking again about the entirety of the communications cycle where there is a sender, message and recipient; and implied in there is that both parties listen and that’s what I want to delve a bit deeper into today.

INTRO

I recently had to bring our chocolate lab Cocoa into the vet for his shots and a general check up. He’s a good guy for a dog and is very easy to get along with so I didn’t mind if he saw a different vet, I had no worries that he was going to act strange. Sure enough Cocoa loved the poor vet and vet tech to bits before they could start the exam and I was able to stay in the room to distract him so they could do their work.

Afterwards I had a few questions around his allergies that act up whenever we visit my brother who lives a few hours away. It’s a very specific reaction, a specific time frame they last for - basically they appear shortly after we arrive and disappear the day after we’re home. He eats his usual food, essentially everything except the trees and shrubs in the backyard are the same. He’s allergic to something in my brother’s back yard. But we only visit the odd weekend, maybe two or three times a year so it’s never that big of a deal. However, as we’re moving to the other side of the country (in fact I should be somewhere in the middle of the country right now if you’re listening the week this episode is uploaded), we were going to visit my brother one last time the weekend after Cocoa’s appointment. So it was on my mind to ask, after outlining all of the pertinent information, if I can give Cocoa a human anti-histamine just to treat the flare up if he becomes uncomfortable.

I suspect the vet stopped listening after hearing the word allergies because I got a load of questions about his eating and drinking and where he gets his reactions and what they are, how long they last. All questions I had already provided the answers to. I then got a list of expensive injections Cocoa could get that would cover him for months. And this added time to an already longer appointment because my dog had to take his time loving them before letting them examine him; I’m already in a bit of a hurry.

I’m not complaining about the vet, there are explanations for why she questioned me such as she doesn’t know me to know that I am diligent in checking things out to rule out the usual suspects before asking a professional. She’s new and heard me but was running a script that she was trained to use. Maybe her insurance explicitly required her to ask the questions. I don’t know. But maybe she was just not listening. 

So other than frustrating your clients, There are way more other benefits of listening than what I’m going to cover here. But I listed them out and it seemed that they all boiled down to two main areas - relationship and efficiency.

Life is busy and it’s understandable why we might not be concentrating on what others are saying to us but just because it’s understandable does NOT mean it's acceptable. Especially if you’re running a business where you aren’t the only one providing the particular service or product you specialize in. You need to be spectacular at your craft and even then, you might not survive the damage caused to a client or customer relationship if you don’t listen. It’s a fundamental need to be heard and understood and while your client might not understand why they feel dissatisfied, they’ll recognize that they don’t particularly feel awesome after dealing with you and if the opportunity to try someone else comes up, you might be out a paycheque.

On the flip side, if you’re an excellent listener - and we’ll get to that in a moment - your people will love you to bits. They will trust you, they’ll be more forgiving and come back to you and the bonus is that they will tell your friends about you. Your reputation is the most important asset in your business, more so than your equipment, your knowledge and expertise, your location and your pricing. If you don’t have a good reputation, people will only begrudgingly buy from you until they can find an alternative. And in this day and age, there is always an accessible alternative.

So your relationship with your clients and customers is fundamental to your business’s success. And people are more likely to provide you with feedback when you are a listener. The beautiful thing is, is that they may not even be aware that they’re doing it. But if you’re listening, you’ll pick up on what they say or how they act around a product or before or after receiving a service. Those little tidbits lead me to the second main benefit which is efficiency.

When you are listening and paying attention to your clients, you’ll pick up ways that the product or service serves them. When you have a relationship with your customer, you have access to focus group-like feedback without the cost of a professional facilitator. You’ll hear what works perfectly and what you can improve on, and your offering will always be top quality. You’ll be able to cut out the aspects that aren’t working or don’t serve your current client base, thereby becoming more efficient in your processes. If you’re listening. 

And what I really love is that when you’re listening, you hear your customer’s words. Yeah, I know, that sounds redundant but it’s not - so many of us shy away from writing copy because we don’t know what to say. We struggle with our social media, our advertising, going live, writing a blurb for the package, whatever. Because what are we going to say? And yes, I preach messaging and always will but those specific words that you use to convey your messaging - those words are so much more powerful when they are your customer’s own words. They resonate harder, they grab the audience more securely, they make your customer feel like they are seen and heard. Yes, heard. Because they have been. Because you’ve been listening.

So what exactly does it mean to be a good listener? How do you do it, exactly? Because we all listen. Somewhat. Sort of. Listen. We get the gist of what’s being said, we think.

None of the tips here are rocket science, they are common communications skills that I think have slowly started to become uncommon in recent years. It’s time for a revival, my friends, and here are my five tips to become a better listener. 

First, stay present. That means don’t have your phone in your hand, screen up unless you're on zoom or Facetime or whatever. See the human in front of you, even if they are on a screen. Eye contact can be an excellent connector but I know that eye contact is tough. So if that’s completely outside of your comfort zone or your personal capabilities, that’s ok. Use the person’s name as a means to establish a connection, to remind you to stay present. Look in the general direction of their face for a brief moment every few minutes, as you can if you can. It’s easier if you are online to do this, just face them - so few of us actually look into the camera, your customer or client won’t really expect you to make eye contact. But you do need to acknowledge that there is a person you are communicating with

Second, make notes and check your information. I just tell my clients that I’m going to make notes while they talk so they don’t think I’m ignoring them. I process better from written words and often make little notes or symbols to represent ideas or places where further questioning is required. But I’m aware of the perception that I might not be listening so I’m just upfront from the get-go. People with ADHD and other different capabilities actually listen better when doodling or fidgeting - if that’s the case, just be upfront about it. It’s not something to be embarrassed about, just say it as a fact and it will be accepted as a fact, you move on with the consultation sales process or whatever you’re doing. 

Part of staying present is checking to make sure you’ve heard and understood correctly. 

Ask questions and confirm what you think is happening. You can paraphrase and repeat things back, followed by the phrase ‘did I understand that correctly’ or something similar to check. If you haven’t heard correctly, you might not know until you've taken action on that incorrect information - thereby killing any potential for efficiency and improvement. Checking for understanding is vital.

Also vital is patience, my third tip. Sometimes it’s hard to formulate an opinion or find the right words or the person you’re speaking with is dealing with their own mental list of one thousand things that are competing with their ability to have a conversation with you. You need to be patient and let them speak without talking over them, without putting words in their mouth, without sighing or looking at your watch or texting someone - no matter how quickly or discretely you think you can dash one off. I script these episodes because I am a slow talker when I’m thinking and I have reasons for that. One of my boys has overcome a rare speech impediment but still stutters when nervous so he has learned to take his time and not rush when speaking. You don’t know what’s impacting a person’s ability to rattle off information but you can bet your last dollar that they are aware of whatever impediment they have and will notice and be grateful for those who take the time to listen. And if this is you, you know that yourself. Or perhaps more likely, you know what it’s like not to be listened to and you don’t want to make others feel that way. So practise patience. It will be rewarded.

 

My fourth tip is to take a beat to assimilate the info and respond thoughtfully, you don’t need to snap back a response. If you start speaking as soon as someone has stopped talking, were you really listening? I’m a bury the lead kinda gal, it made my life difficult when writing news stories until I learned the trick of taking my last paragraph and moving it to the intro. But now that I have my own medium - this podcast - you guys are at the mercy of my personal style. If I want to wrap up the podcast with the most important piece of information, that’s quite possibly what I’m going to do. My stats indicate that you listen all the way, that I thankfully don’t lose you, so I feel comfortable rolling with my own way of communicating most of the time. But I digress. Take a minute. Stay present, check what you have heard and understood and that will help you formulate your response. You haven’t done any of that if you have a prepared response ready at the first pause. Plus, when you have given the information provided your attention, and allow your brain an extra beat to process, you might surprise yourself with what you come up with either a follow up question or as advice, or as an idea for your own personal use such as how to better communicate with this customer in the future.

And my fifth and final tip is to watch the non-verbal communication if you can. Is that technically listening? Well sort of, yes. You can still use your ears to pick up the tone of voice or the pace of the speech used. What do they tell you? Do they indicate that you should perhaps take the information with a grain of salt? That the person is quite passionate or not really interested or bothered? You can watch to see if the person is thoughtful in their expression or if they’re distracted and perhaps only providing you with partial information, leaving you an opportunity to ask some questions and dig deeper or come back to the point at a different time. Decoding non-verbal communication can take some skills but it can’t happen at all if you don’t pay attention to it to begin with. 

And these tips for listening and relationship building aren’t just appropriate for business. They apply to your personal life and relationships too. Being heard is a basic human need, not a business requirement. You might find that in business and in your personal life issues that could potentially escalate actually cool or are resolved before even becoming a capital I issue because the frustration or urgency is diminished by virtue of being heard. 

So better listening can lead to an improved relationship and efficiency, and can be achieved through staying present, checking for understanding, being patient then taking a beat or two to process the information, and being aware of body language. When you notice how your clients feel really good about talking to you, when you see them leaving you with a flow of being heard and therefore feeling valued, pop me a note on Instagram @janiceefogarty or why not join my facebook group the Connections, Coffee & Confidence Community so we can celebrate together? Hope to see you soon and until next week, my friend, enjoy the rest of your day.

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