I Heard What You Said, Just Not What You Meant

Listening is one of the most difficult things to do for many people.  It is especially difficult for people in sales.  Our mind is focused on what we are going to say and not what is being said to us.

Often the words register, but not the intent.  It is usually because we miss the subtle clues that reveal that intent because again, we are thinking about our response, or about our own message.  We miss the non-verbal, or we misunderstand context.

I learned a long time ago that I am most effective as part of a team.  This is just as important in selling as it is in many other aspects of life.  The bad thing is that my preference is to go it alone on most things.  I am comfortable with myself and being alone doesn't bother me as it does some.  I am perfectly happy with silence and no interruptions.

Learning how to work as a team takes practice and perhaps a bit of training.  We can train ourselves if we want, because it is a matter of learning to allow space for others.  Most people are so completely self-absorbed that they struggle to allow space for others.  It's "all about me" is becoming so ingrained into U.S. society, that to be anything else is an anomaly. 

Being part of a team is difficult because it means sharing the glory when we win and sharing the defeat otherwise.  We can't take all the credit and we have to accept the blame -- even if, in our mind, it wasn't our fault.  We need to realize though, that it is always our fault.  What do I mean by that?  I mean we must be proactive in our preparation, proactive in our planning, proactive in the team-building that will keep us, as a team, from anything but our best effort.

That doesn't mean heavy-handedness; it means caring.  We need to care as much for the success of others on our team as we do for our own.  Whoa, that one is tough.  I thought it was all about climbing over the bodies on the way up?  Wrong.  It is about taking as many with us as we can possibly get in the boat.

I suppose this post is a bit rambling, but maybe there is something here of value.  My main point was intended to be that we aren't very good listeners, but where I seemed to end up is that we are most effective as part of a team even though society is telling us otherwise. 

There's an old adage in sales that you should 1) tell them what you're going to talk about, 2) talk about it and then 3) tell them what you said.  Hopefully, since I fumbled the first point you will figure out what I meant....

Teamwork is Learned

We all know that teamwork is important.  When a team is functioning as it should, it is a thing of beauty.  Each member knows what their job is and performs it flawlessly in conjunction with other members of the team.  A team may consist of several, or it might just be two individuals that work well together like this pair of Redbone Coonhounds.

I don't recall what these two were focused on when this photo was made, but I suspect it was an opossum.  There was one that lived in a thicket of trees just across the fence you see in the background.  The hounds would raise a ruckus whenever it made an appearance -- unless they were in stalking mode such as in this photo.  Then they would go silent, muscles tense, poised to pounce at the first opportunity.

One day as I worked from my home office, the noise of their frustration made it difficult for me to concentrate on the project on which I was working.  I walked out back and found the opossum hissing at them from the top of the fence.  I decided to end the stalemate and found a stick with which to knock the snarling varmint from his perch.  When he hit the ground, the dogs pounced -- one to the head, the other to the middle -- and the stalemate ended.

The way the dogs worked together was a thing of beauty.

I'm sure there will be people who take offence to the fact I aided the dogs in their quest to end the earthly sojourn of this tick-eating marsupial.  To them I would argue that I only sped the inevitable.  Those dogs were bent on making it happen if they had to learn how to climb that fence to complete the task.

For a number of years I spent a good deal of time on the road making sales calls.  We had a primary vendor whose Rep worked closely with me to build the business since we were introducing new technology into a somewhat reluctantly accepting industry.  Over time, we became a very effective team.  We learned to work together, much like those two hounds.  We each learned to utilize the other's strengths to offset our own areas of "less polish" -- I refuse to use the word weakness in this case, because we each were learning to strengthen those areas by adapting the techniques of the other.

We made a good team.

We all need to build teams -- relationships -- in which each knows their role and fills it in concert with the other(s).