If the Shoe Fits: Shutting Your Mental Mouth
by Miki Saxon
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Experience teaches that if you absolutely need information frame it as a question and then shut up.
It’s a tried and true method that every good sales person knows (they call them closing questions) and is guaranteed to get whomever you are talking with to answer specifically.
For most people it’s a diffucult strategy to employ in spite of working 99% of the time.
Often the silence stretches, creating pressure to fill the void, so the askER enumerates, adding detail or “what I mean is…” and the askEE is off the hook and rarely responds to the original question.
Even when the askER stays quiet their mental mouth is moving, framing responses, organizing rebuttals, responding to possible scenarios.
Whether physical or mental, your thoughts drive the words and the more thinking the less listening, because the focus is elsewhere.
In order to get funded you need to hear investors.
In order to sell you need to hear your customers.
In order to manage you need to hear your people.
You can’t hear if you are talking.
Shutting up is key and that means shutting your mental mouth along with your physical one.
Option Sanity™ helps you hear
Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process. It’s so easy a CEO can do it.
Warning.
Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.
Image credit: Bun in a Can Productions
