Use Your Outer Eye And Your Inner Ear

From Ron Sukenick

I've been reading some of the sales training materials from Dr. Ramon Avila of Ball State University. He's got a list of Do's and Don't's for salespeople, and prominent among the Don't's is this: "Don't have a wandering eye." As a business coach for so many years, I'd put that one at the top of my list for anyone who wants to go beyond networking and create effective and long-lasting relationships. Here's what I mean:

A couple of decades ago, when formal networking was growing in popularity, we considered it a "no-no" to spend too much time at a networking meeting with just a few individuals. We wanted to be efficient, so, what we'd do is, while speaking to one person, we'd be scanning the room to see what contact to make next. We listened just long enough to the other person's remarks to rank them as useful to us or a waste of our time, and we never maintained full eye contact with anyone for very long. Not only weren't we listening very intently, it was worse than that - our contact knew we weren't listening very intently! There was no real connection - we didn't give one a chance to get started!

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm still the same Ron Sukenick who for almost thirty years has been promoting networking. In fact, I've had the privilege of being recognized as a national expert on networking. But business never stays the same, and so networking needs to change along with it.

I'm no physiologist, but now that I've resolved to go beyond networking and use and teach the 15 relationship strategies I talk about in my book (see The Power Is In The Connection), I'd swear there's a pipeline between our eyes and our inner ears. When we really look at another person, focusing all our attention on them, not scanning the room, not looking away, it actually opens up our "inner ears", so we can listen purposefully and honestly mean it when we say to that person, "Tell me more".

"Stop, look, and listen." - remember that one from grade school? I realize now that this is excellent advice, not only for school children, but for every business person who wants to travel "into the beyond" of networking.