Episode Transcript.

What’s up? What’s up? What’s up, everybody? Welcome back to THE a.m guys, welcome back to five minute rants. I’m your host, Michael Abernathy. And welcome back to the show predicated on the journey of life and business.

So I wanted to talk about today, really, how to listen better, and how to serve people around you better. And the simple way to do this is Ask questions. And Here’s the thing, don’t just be fake about it, like actually ask about stuff you genuinely care about. And I talked about listening, I’ve talked about the art of listening before and how it’s a lost art because see most of us speak and most of us talk and wait our turn to speak because we’re not, we’re not actually even listening to what’s being told to us from the other side, we’re selfishly communicating, I have something to share, I have something to say.

And especially in sales, a lot of the sales in business, all the negotiations oftentimes are a lot of talking. Versus if you just stopped and asked questions about What they cared about, and What mattered, you’d find a much better relationship at the end of the conversation no matter what’s going to happen. And it’s very abnormal to actually listen, it’s very abnormal to discover and ask questions. And this applies everywhere. You want to make more friends, you want to be more friendly, you want to do better networking, you want to have a better relationship with your spouse, ask questions, start caring to understand why they do certain things like, Hey, why did you do that? That’s interesting. Why do you think that? Why do you actually care about those things, and then let them tell you.

It’s amazing how little talking you have to do to find out really valuable information about the person sitting across the table from you, or on the other end of the phone. It’s also really amazing how fast a relationship will grow and a friendship will come out of simply just asking questions. And it’s amazing how much listening actually allows people to come to the conclusion that you care about them. See What most of us we want to get something out of a deal. We want to get something out of a conversation, we’re looking to get something out. And I’ve talked about this before about selfishness. And one of the ways that we become very selfish oftentimes is through conversation. We want to talk selfishly, we respond selfishly, we’re not actually listening, nor engaged in the conversation, we’re waiting for our turn to say something I said that in the beginning of this episode, but that’s really true. And it really comes back from selfishness.

And in life in general relationships in general will be much better if you listened. And if you ask questions. And I think especially in business, we don’t do this, we make assumptions, and then be selfish. And then we create products without actually asking questions of the people we’re going to sell it to. It’d be amazing to find out if people really want What you’re about to sell, whether it’s a service or product. And the simplest way to do that is just ask questions. Find out if people really care and then do some testing, like blind testing, like cool, Here’s a product, would you want to buy this? Yes, no. What do you think about it? And not take things personally? The other thing too, is, as you’re networking, just ask questions, right? What do they care about?

Because Here’s the biggest thing, like I’ve been networking, a bunch and all this other stuff, everybody’s always trying to get a deal or a sale. But that’s not how networking works. The whole point of networking is to have a relationship and just establish a connection. And it would be so much better to walk away and be known as the guy who cared, or the person who cared and actually listened, then the person who was just trying to sell something, get something selfishly out of it. Think about this way, anytime you go to buy a car, they never ask you, What do you want. They’re like, Oh, they are trying to sell What they’ll make the most commission off, or What they actually need to sell and What they’ve been delegated to sell by their sales leader, they don’t actually stop and ask you, Hey, why do you need this? What are you looking for? What would best suit your family? What are your goals and purposes? How long do you actually plan on having the car, and then they can actually guide you.

See the whole point of asking questions, especially if you’re in a place of sales. Or if you’re in a project manager position, you can actually guide based off of What the other person wants. And I guess you could say that this episode ties into building a customer centric business. But it’s really this is to me as a general principle of life is actually just asking questions be and stop assuming that you know, or that you understand one of the easiest, and also worst assumptions that you can make is well, I know. And if you think about it, most kids when they grow up, they start saying, Oh, I know. I know. I know. And it’s like wow, that’s interesting. Like I did that looking back at my childhood. I said that a lot to my parents. I said that a lot to my friends. And then that assumption carried with me and then it’s interesting how that affects my everyday day to day life in my listening skills.

If I just listened to What people wanted most of time in my life. Normally life ends up to be much better than expected. And then the relationship I have with that individual whether it’s in business friend or whatever, is way Way, way better off than What I could have had if I just responded or waited my turn to talk. Anyways, that’s it for today guys. I’ll catch you later peace