2 minute read
The art of listening
Gill Johnston GillJ@aspen-waite.co.uk
A couple of years ago, I went to a restaurant in London called Dans Le Noir. It provides dinner or lunch in pitch darkness. The waiters who are blind, take you to your table. You need to put your hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you, forming a small chain. The waiter then pulls back your chair and seats you, takes your hands and shows you by touch where your glass and cutlery are. The feeling of sitting in absolute darkness, not even a chink of light was both strange and invigorating, and a little eerie. The experience showed how your other senses went into overdrive within the environment. Your sense of hearing became so acute that you could hear conversation from what felt like tables away. Your sense of taste, without being able to see what you were eating, highlighted how we use our eyes to decide which part of the plate to eat from and to decide what looks appetising. The whole sense of smelling, touching and tasting was so very different. The basic things we take for granted like putting food on a fork and expecting it to still be on the folk when it reaches your mouth was an experience to remember. We ended up using our fingers to eat; nobody could see so it didn’t really matter. We enjoyed good humour with the people we sat with, who we didn’t know and had no idea what they looked like. This experience makes you realise that the art of listening is just as import as the art of speaking.
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This got me thinking about the work that I do in relation to business development and lead generation. We can speak on the telephone but cannot see the person we are talking to. We have seconds to make that all important connection. If what you are talking about is logical and makes sense, most people are willing to listen. Much of my work has centred around the psychology of the call. Many will open a call with ‘how are you today’ or ‘I sent you an email last week’. This is a neon sign that it is a cold call. We know from our experience that the opening of a call should describe the result of what you do, not who you are. This small technique makes such a difference when starting the call. Over the past 18 months I have been working with Aspen Waite initially with R&D support and more recently within customer support and business development for the marketing department and Aspen Waite Radio. Making excellent use of my professional services approach and my experience in business development, I always apply expert listening techniques to try and engage as fully as possible with the person I am talking to. This can often take the form of asking questions that relate to the overall project. The ability to listen is crucial to understanding how you can help and gives the customer a chance to express their needs and wants. We all have so much to process each day that sometimes taking the time to listen, and digest can easily be overlooked.
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