…start of rant…

I believe that Marc and I are very good listeners. In fact as good as we are at listening we also suck at listening.

We were once in a meeting which contained way too many silent moments because we were so used to keeping out mouth shut that we never had anything to add.

So while I am all for listening I am all for talking too. This brings me to my reason for this post.

Lately we have received quite a few requests for meetings to just have a chat about the web etc. We love these meetings because its good to network and you never know what you could learn from your visitor.

But…. the other day we had someone come in here (Let’s call this person Wilson) and all they did was speak . And speak. And speak. It was about a 1hr ‘meeting’ and if Marc and I got 10 sentences in it was a lot. During the meeting Wilson was giving us all these proposals of collaboration and that he was this project and that project etc… Wilson was asking us questions but not once waited for an answer.

If you are going to ask someone to get involved with your project can I suggest that you a) give them time to think and b) give them time to respond.

If you talk too much there is the risk that the listener loses trust in you. They would rather have you out of their space than to keep attacking it all the time.

The other issue I had was that Wilson kept on mentioning how much money they made. When did I ask how much money you make? How much money you make is private and should stay private. One of my pet hates is when someone bursts through the door and tells me how rich they are, I instantly ask myself ‘Are you really that rich?’ which is quickly followed by ‘Do I really care? And why are you telling me?’. There are those who think they are, and then there are others who know they are. I prefer the latter.

I understand that it is important to get your point across but be careful not to shut yourself off from the people you are actually talking to. You risk losing their interest and before you even get to the main item of the meeting you have lost their attention.

So I suggest that, unless the moment calls for it, you talk and listen. You never know what the other person might add.

…end of rant…