It’s not two ears and a mouth…

[caption id=”attachment_976" align=”alignright” width=”159" caption=”What a lovely pair!”]

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I guess all that playground bullying and nature’s blessing of my unusally large appendages has paid off.

Today, more than any other day in the past, business is about listening.

Let me eludicate.

If you’re in the communicate to create game, you need to play by pretty unconventional rules to stand out from the pack and give your client a Purple Cow.

The latest voguey expression relating to social media marketing and indeed anything nouveau communications is this:

You have one mouth, two ears — use them in that ratio.

Quite a shocking revelation to most people, who find the idea of their knowledge being compromised by what the customer has to say a profoundly distressing experience.

But I go a step further. I don’t believe in 66% listening, 33% talking. Nor, evidently, do I believe in maths.

Here’s my take:

You have customers who know what they want, and you’re not the customer. So spend 95% of the time listening, and 5% answering back.

It’s easy to rationalise this. Since your customer buys from you, and pays your wages, it makes sense they also drive your business. Is that how it works for you?

Listening does this:

• It makes you receptive
• It makes you all-knowing
• It makes your products and services align with your customers
• It brings you incredible word of mouth
• It delivers on your promise to be truly a customer service-oriented business.

And that, my wonderful people, is why Word And Mouth is a listening communications company.

Thanks so much to you, tambako the jaguar, for capturing that great shot of my animal equivalent.