Frontline Perspectives

Now, here’s a pledge that’ll strengthen business relationships, as well as personal ones (happy Valentine’s Day, everyone). Listen. Just, listen.

There’s no doubt that listening is important. In fact, more than 35 studies show that listening is one of the key skills needed for business success. But it’s hard. Not only because we’re easily distracted, but because we simply cannot listen as fast as we think.

According to the International Listening Association, we listen at a rate of 125–250 words per minute, but we think at a rate of 1,000–3,000 words per minute. Plus, we’re preoccupied about 75 percent of the time when we should be focused on what someone else is saying.

As a result:

• Short-term, we only remember about 50 percent of what we hear.
• Long-term, we only remember 20 percent of what we hear.

That can lead to all kinds of problems in business-to-business marketing, like misinterpreting a customer’s needs or a client’s expectations. We’re all so busy getting our messages out there, but we’re always more effective when we take the time to listen and digest what we hear.

Read Umair Haque’s Harvard Business Review blog post to learn more about the common assumptions marketers make and how to avoid them by “listening up.” As Haque defines it, “Listening up means spending time actually talking to your customers, about not just their ‘wants’ and ‘needs’ but about their hopes and fears, their opportunities and threats, their greatest achievements and biggest regrets.”

In a nutshell, here are Haque’s suggestions for how to listen up:

• Have dialogues about what specifically will elevate your customers to higher standards of living.
• Empower people in your organization to openly converse with customers and each other.
• Really listen to what your critics say about your business.
• Invest in your resources so they can be heard.
• Ask the questions that matter, and then listen to the answers.

If we really listen to each other, we can respond better. That goes for every conversation inside and outside the office.

So, just to recap and conclude this short new-year series:

• New Year’s Resolution #1: Improve Your Relationship with SEO
• New Year’s Resolution #2: Write Better Headlines
• New Year’s Resolution #3: Listen Carefully

Hopefully, your year is already off to a good start!