The “White Magic” of Listening

A colleague of mine recently gave me a copy of Brian Tracy’s book on advanced selling principles. I haven’t gotten all that far in it yet, but I’ve already been struck by Tracy referring to listening as a sort of “white magic.” It’s an extremely powerful concept – one most of us understand intuitively but do not practice enough.

Before strategy, there should be listening

Before solutions, there should be listening

Before tactics, more listening.

Listening to prospects. Listening to customers. Listening to members.

Then reflection  – though it needs to be very fast, agile reflection in many cases.

Only after that is it time to talk or to act.

Tracy points out that the best sales people, contrary to popular notions of them, are more often than not introverts. They don’t come out talking, they come out listening. (As an introvert myself, I happen to support any assertion that the “best” are introverts )

I’d add that anyone worth his or her salt who advises you on strategy – whether general strategy, social media marketing strategy, whatever – should be leading with the idea that you listen first. (And one of the magical things about the social Web is that there are so many great listening tools.)

The reason for the quotation marks around “white magic,” of course, is that this is not magic at all. But when an individual or organization does it well and consistently, it sure looks that way. Because it happens so rarely.

So, enough of me talking. I’m going out to do some listening. You?

Jeff

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