Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
No one listens to long, drawn out sales pitches, yet so many salespeople still use this odious practice (You’ve probably hung up on a telemarketer before he could come up for air within the last week, right?). Don’t be part of this problem! Break off your monologuing by learning the One-Paragraph Rule.
Steve writes about the rule in this week’s newsletter, It’s time for a break (The one-paragraph rule).
We can all thank Steve’s brother for developing the One-Paragraph Rule – Thanks, Phil! And, more importantly, we can all use it to improve our sales conversations.
Read now: It’s time for a break (The one-paragraph rule)
Posted in Conversation, Ditch the Pitch | 3 Comments »
Friday, October 1st, 2010
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.”
– Ram Dass
Every second you are talking in a sales conversation is a second you are not listening to your customer. You are listening to yourself. Use words sparingly, returning to “input mode” as quickly as possible, giving yourself the chance to be alert and notice things that can drive your reactions.
I’m always impressed by how infrequently stage improvisers interrupt each other. One reason for this is that these actors are much more focused on listening and observing than on talking. Their mouths wait for their ears and eyes, and this extra focus on input makes it easier for them to exchange the focus of the scene between themselves.
Contrast this with business meetings where people are more interested in getting their points out than they are interested in listening to others. People are constantly starting sentences in the middle of other people’s sentences, and people are not alert to cues from colleagues that could help communication.
Sell like the stage improviser, not like that obnoxious guy you work with who is always interrupting people in meetings. The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
Posted in Ditch the Pitch | 2 Comments »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
It’s Day 2 of my 17-day odyssey, sharing ideas with people from Seattle to Mauritius.
I’m writing while on a flight from Seattle to Newark, 25 rows behind Rudy Giuliani, who is sitting in the aisle seat in the first row of first class. Rudy got on the plane early, and did a great job of keeping his eyes glued to his BlackBerry as people stared when they crowded past him. (Update for those of you who read yesterday’s post: After much hassle, I got my suitcase back from United Airlines. And, I stayed calm throughout it all.)
One irony of my travels is that, although I’m traveling alone, I’m constantly engaged in conversations. Conducting interactive workshops, side conversations with people during these events, engaging in a stream of phone calls as I move from place to place, chatting with people in lines at the airport; I’m always talking with people.One thing I always try to be aware of is the quality of the conversation I’m in.
How fluid is the dialogue? Is there too much monologue? Are we connecting and sharing? Are we both present? I grade myself pretty hard. If you’re speaking with me, and I drift into monologue, you can bet that I know it and I’ll chastise myself later. If you catch me spacing out, not paying attention to what you’re saying, you should be confident that I caught myself also. (Even though I’m spacing out.)
In fact, if you’re ever speaking with me, in person or by phone, and you think my quality of conversation is lacking, I invite you to call me out on it.I think of this self-monitoring as “The Conversationometer”, and I think it is a really healthy tool to use, all the time. In every conversation, especially those with customers, continuously monitor the quality of your dialogue. Is the dialogue fluid?
Am I listening, and responding based on what I’m hearing? Are we locked in together in true dialogue, or are we committing “monologue disguised as dialogue?”In an interview on page 83 of my book We, Karyn Kedar uses the metaphor of a sailboat tacking with the wind to explain how to keep a conversation on track. You’re paying attention, constantly feeling the wind, and making adjustments as needed to move swiftly through the water.Why is it so important to self-monitor your contribution to a conversation? Because your customer is also monitoring the quality of the conversation.
Don’t believe that you can get away with monologue, or weak dialogue, without being found out. Use The Conversationometer to ensure that you are totally engaged in genuine dialogue with your customer.When I witness someone entrenched in monologue, it often seems like they aren’t even aware of what they’re doing. They get on a roll, blabbing away, without even noticing that they’re not really in a conversation. I want to hold an aural mirror up to their ears (that’s a bizarre image) and say, “Listen to yourself!” Which is ironic, because most of the time no one else is listening to the monologuer.The most important asset your business has is its relationships, and true conversation is the blood flow of relationship-building encounters.
Think of The Conversationometer as being like one of those heart monitoring machines in the hospital. Don’t flatline.
Posted in Conversation | 6 Comments »
Sunday, May 17th, 2009
I often ask audience members to describe what genuine dialogue feels like. Here’s some of what I hear:
“Give and take.”
“Flowing.”
“Paying attention to what each other says.”
“Learning from each other.”
“Listening.”
… and many more like that.
Genuine dialogue is a necessary component of a relationship-building encounter. (Check out my free ebook, Encounters, for more information on relationship-building encounters.) But, so many of our conversations aren’t true dialogue. They are either monologue or monologue disguised as dialogue.
Try this: (I’ve been doing it, and it’s been very interesting.) Pay attention to every conversation you are in, noting where it falls on a continuum from monologue to genuine dialogue. If a conversation falls short of genuine dialogue, ask yourself, “Why?” Did the other person talk without really listening to you? Did you not exactly answer what the other person said, but force-fit your answer into a topic area that you wanted to insert into the conversation? Were you really talking to each other, or, were you each really just talking to yourselves?
Pay attention. Share your observations in comments here. How many of your conversations each day are genuine dialogue? What conditions or situations make genuine dialogue easier, and which make it harder? How are outcomes influenced by the presence, or lack thereof, of genuine dialogue? How does dialogue contribute to relationship-building encounters?
Posted in Conversation | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
One of the most important components of a relationship-building encounter is conversation, based on genuine dialogue. As Martin Buber wrote in his 1930 essay, Dialogue, what often passes for conversation is nothing more than “monologue disguised as dialogue.”
Conversation, and the difference between monologue and dialogue, has recently been a frequent topic of discussion with my clients and workshop participants. This opportunity to spend so much time conversing about conversation has clarified things for me, and here’s what I think:
In genuine dialogue, neither person is hiding an inner monologue. You are not talking to yourself in the background. You are talking with each other, and only with each other.
It’s not that you can’t be thinking while you are talking. Of course you are. But are your thoughts directed into the conversation, or are they part of a competing, plotting, inner monologue? Does the other person have a second voice in his head, hidden from you yet obscuring the true meaning of what you hear him say?
This is the intersection between being fully present and conversation. If you are talking to yourself, you can’t be in true dialogue with another person.
Posted in Conversation | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
“We’re attacking the target market with a rifle shot approach.”
“We’re in a fierce battle with the competition to capture market share.”
“We’ve scheduled a volley of advertising for the fall.”
I’ve actually heard people say these things. What is this, marketing, or West Point?
Why are we targeting customers? Are we trying to shoot them?
I’ll bet many of these companies claim to have a focus on “relationship marketing.” (Which usually means their IT department manages CRM software and they use it to “target” offers to certain customers)
These are marketing words I avoid:
“target”
“chase”
“go after”
“attack”
“penetrate”
“exploit”
“saturate”
“capture”
“break through”
“seduce”
“Them”
These are marketing words I love:
“engage”
“collaborate”
“dialogue”
“listen”
“respond”
“dance”
“encounter”
“involve”
“We”
Throwing information at customers is a very ineffective method of communication. If I want to persuade you of something, would I have much luck if I tried to “capture” you or “target” you?
Relationships require dialogue. Monologue can cripple relationships in their tracks.
Marketing is not hypnosis. Is it not something you do to your customers. It is something you do with them.
Posted in Marketing | 16 Comments »
Monday, February 18th, 2008
The concept of the “elevator pitch” has become popular in recent years. An elevator pitch is what you would say if you were lucky enough to find yourself in an elevator for 30 seconds with the CEO of a prospective client company.
The biggest problem with an elevator pitch is that you may actually tell it to someone.
Why do I say this?
The Next 30 Seconds
I am much less interested in the 30 seconds you are in an elevator with a CEO than I am interested in the next 30 seconds, after you say goodbye in the building’s lobby. What happens during this subsequent 30 seconds? Is the CEO totally mesmerized by his encounter with you, unable to stop thinking about this incredible person he just met, or does he grab his cell phone and make a call, as the memory of you quickly fades away?
Monologue vs. Dialogue
If you want to create a memorable encounter with someone, don’t expect a 30-second monologue to do the trick, no matter how well it is crafted. You will have much better success if you focus, instead, on creating a 30-second dialogue.
The worst thing we all learned about marketing that it is mostly based on one-way communication … “getting the word out,” “telling your story,” “making your pitch,” “cutting through the clutter,” and, my personal (un)favorite, “capturing eyeballs.”
Humans don’t connect with monologues the way they connect with dialogues in which they are engaged. If you want to communicate with someone, don’t talk at them. Talk with them.
Posted in Customer Encounters, We relationships | 6 Comments »
Friday, February 1st, 2008
I started my career in the hospitality business, where great “service” was considered to be a prime virtue. What this means is that hotel employees were trained to do things “for” customers – to serve them.
Yes, doing something “for” a customer can be a good thing, and it’s certainly better than doing something “to” a customer. But there are many opportunities when it is possible to rise above customer service, going beyond “for” to “with.” Instead of doing a presentation for your customer, can you engage in dialogue with him? If you are a restaurant server, is it better to pick out wine for the customer, or work with her to find the right wine?
This is not the 19th century. We do not feel the need to be served. More often, we feel the need to collaborate. Sure, you don’t want to collaborate with every waiter or hotel bellman, but even in those instances it is possible for a “service” employee to create a feeling of “with” if the customer is open to it. And, if the customer is open to “with,” a great opportunity for a relationship-building encounter exists.
Posted in We relationships | 3 Comments »
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