Have you ever gone to a party and met someone new and for the next fifteen minutes they do nothing but talk about themselves? You stand there looking around trying to find a way to get out of the discussion. Maybe you finish your beverage of choice as fast as possible hoping the need to top off your drink might be a good way out of the one sided conversation or you act like you just saw someone you haven’t seen in years necessitating your exit.
Now, picture yourself at the same party and you meet someone for the first time and you find that the person is engaging you with a lot of questions just trying to get to know you. They want to know what your interests are, what you do for a living, a little about your family. Whatever it is, you find yourself talking to the person for thirty minutes because they have an interest in who you are and what you enjoy. Towards the end of the conversation you find yourself searching for your phone so you can get their number so maybe you can meet them up for lunch sometime or maybe play a round of golf because you in turn want to get to know more about them since they obviously showed an interest in you.
It truly amazes me how much farther you can get in developing relationships (personal or professional) when you shun the mindset and the old Toby Keith song “ I Wanna Talk About Me!” The motivation for this post stems from a recent blog entry titled “Listening” from our Chairman, Clyde Lear, about his time with Wal-Mart founder, Sam Walton.
Asking questions and listening in the business world is imperative. I can’t tell you how many times I hear from a sales person and all they want to do is tell me about their product and how it could help me. Hold on big fella, maybe you should ask some questions about me before you indicate just how much I need this product. When I go on affiliate visits I readily admit I am so excited to tell the station about our programming, but I’ve always found that if I learn more about the station and the programming that they currently air I have a much better idea of how I should position my product so I in turn am more successful in meeting their needs.
So I ask you this question, are you asking enough questions?