There is a reason that you have 2 ears, 2 eyes and only 1 mouth. The reason is that you need to listen and look twice as much as you speak. I have heard this for quite some time, and it really rings true.
I know this is not a new topic, but in these days we need a constant reminder. If you are working on a new product or marketing your services you should focus a great amount of effort to listen and look at the details from your audience before you speak back to them.
All too often we rush through things to get them done for what we want, but don’t take the time to listen to what your audience needs or wants. Or even look to what they are telling us.
Here are 7 steps to follow to help structure yourself to best utilize your naturally given features:
- Plan – Develop a hypothesis of what you think you will find from the next steps.
- Survey – Official or not, but ask questions to help determine what it is your audience is looking for from you.
- Analyze – Dig through the results of your survey to narrow down the answers.
- Survey Again – Similar to step 1, but you need to ask more questions to get past the surface, find objections, or to find the deep down reasons for the answers in step 1.
- Analyze Again – Dig through the results of your second survey to see if the answers you’re getting match the other data.
- Compare – Side-by-side you need to compare your hypothesis to the answers of the 2 surveys to determine what you thought versus what you’ve found in listening to what the surveys (and your audience) wants.
- Act – Now that you have listened at least 2 times you are able to properly put your product or marketing message together that will really help to skyrocket your successes to higher levels. Don’t believe it, I challenge you to try.
Still having some difficulty? Try to implement a few triggers each day for the next 30 days to remind you to listen, listen, look, look, then speak.
