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  • If you do all the talking, you miss a lot.

    Posted on May 5th, 2009 by Robbin and currently 5 commenting.

    The other day I was on the phone with a wise friend, who reminded me of something I often forget: Don’t talk so much.

    He wasn’t talking at me, but he was talking to me about someone he’d like me to meet. He said, “You’ll like him, he’s a little rough around the edges and he talks too much but he’s got a big idea.”

    Hmm. I said, “So you thought of me?” We laughed.

    I am so very passionate about, well… a lot of the things I love: Our clients. The work we are doing in the world. Love 146. My kids. Dining for Women. Learning about new things. Raising education and income levels in South Carolina. The state of healthcare in America. People who can fly planes. Peapods. Why we name things. Renovating old houses. Living a simple life. Our relationship to money and financial institutions (for some really, weird reason). People who start things. And grow things. I seriously could keep this list going for a long time. But I won’t. You get it.

    That love and passion for many things is a blessing and curse. Sometimes, the noise of it all overwhelms me. And I’m certain it tires others who have to listen to me all day long.

    Seventy-seven percent of people trust organizations less than they did did last year (according to Edelman). People trust People. People who share our same passions.

    So even though social media and new ways to communicate and connect have made our voices louder and our ability to share our passions easier than ever, I think this is still a really important lesson:

    Don’t talk so much. Whether you are an organization or a person. You might miss something…really wonderful.

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5 Responses to “If you do all the talking, you miss a lot.”

  1. olivier blanchard May 5th, 2009 at 9:29 am

    Nah. You’re quiet compared to some of us. ;D

    Passion drives evangelism, which pushes us to talk a lot. It’s natural and there is no way around that. Just because we spend a lot of time talking doesn’t mean we aren’t spending at least as much time listening. For all my yapping, I probably spend 20x more time listening. It seems hard to believe, but it’s true. I bet your ratio of talking to listening is higher than most.

    When it comes to companies though, it fascinates me that so many are just now discovering that they have virtually no listening mechanisms to speak of. Decades spent talking, messaging, pushing… but very few real conversations. Very little true engagement. And no listening outposts anywhere. (That’s PR and Customer Service’s job, right? - wrong.)

    As we speak, many of the companies jumping on the social media bandwagon are talking about SM campaigns and SM Marketing… trying to talk talk talk their way into the hearts of people on Twitter and Facebook. Same old mentality. Most of them still don’t know how to listen - mostly because no one has shown them how. Perhaps more importantly, because no one has explained to them why they should be listening. I don’t think that they know any better. Yet.

    Good post, Robbin. :)

  2. Wendy Wells May 6th, 2009 at 8:18 pm

    I agree with Olivier that many companies are just now starting to jump onto the social media bandwagon in order to finally listen to what their public is saying. Recently, I wrote a long note to the folks at a major food company…ok, I’ll call them out, it was Kraft. I explained my life-threatening food allergies and said I wanted to know which dressings were safe for me to eat since so many of their ingredients lists say, “spices.” That word means nothing to me, especially at 2 AM when I’m in the emergency room with anaphylaxis and barely breathing because my throat is closing. Did Kraft hear me? No! I did not get a response from their pretend person who is the face of their customer service and now, I no longer eat any Kraft products. My family and friends have boycotted them as well, in order to ensure my safety.
    Other companies are paying attention when they see complaints written in blogs and on Twitter. I’ve heard of customer service representatives reaching out and asking someone about their experiences and going beyond that, to making a bad situation right. Sometimes talking can help.
    As far as Robbin’s original post goes, I often find myself in the same, passionate boat paddling away with my words as my passenger’s eyes glaze over as their mind start a new grocery list, or solve an imaginary crossword puzzle. Then, I remember the old adage of “biting my tongue.” I literally wrap up what I’m saying and gently keep my tongue trapped inside my mouth with my teeth! Albeit with a pleasant look on my face…I don’t want whomever I’m listening to think I’m hurting myself!
    Thanks for the post!

  3. Robbin Phillips May 7th, 2009 at 5:31 am

    Thanks Olivier. I totally agree with everything you are saying. Passion does drive evangelism. Your passion for the changing world of communication is obvious. (SInce you talk about it on Friday and Saturday nights way past my bedtime. (smiling) And it is also obvious that you are listening and learning.

    I am worried that companies are seeing “social media” as a the new “media buy”. I am intrigued with the ones who are getting it. And equally as intrigued by the ones who don’t. It is something to study and learn from for sure. I think it boils down the the personality, the identity and the soul of a company that gets it. We talk to a lot of people. Some contact us because they want a “thing”, a campaign, a hit. Others have a genuine interest in learning and building deeper relationships with their customers and employees. That will evolve.

  4. Dan Hutson May 15th, 2009 at 8:14 am

    Great advice, and also a bit liberating for those of us blogging. I feel this ongoing pressure to be out there in broadcast mode since I only started blogging/tweeting in the last few months. If we all just eased back a bit, spent more time in listening mode and crafted more thoughtful commentary on the things that interest us, then the level of discourse would rise immeasurably.

    On Twitter especially, sometimes it feels like a race to be “first tweet” when you come across something of interest out there. More listening may result in a greater flow of original insight sparked by what others are putting out there. That said, I know I’ll continue to retweet stuff I think deserves broader dissemination.

    Thanks to @BrainTraffic for pointing me toward your blog, by the way. I look forward to reading further.

  5. Erik Wallace May 15th, 2009 at 8:55 am

    Thanks for the reminder. I tend to be verbose as well and could probably focus on listening more. Case in point, I had lunch with a web strategist yesterday and wanted to get some advice from her about starting out. I wrote down a list of questions I wanted to ask the night before and had to fight myself the entire lunch to not talk the entire time and listen.

    There is most certainly a relationship between being passionate about something and wanting to share it with the world.

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