You’re at a party or business function and you are introduced to someone you’ve admired for a long while.
Immediately following the introduction, as you say something intelligent (hoping to impress), you notice that the person you admire is not making eye contact. Instead, he or she is looking down at her phone, or looking over your shoulder at someone else. Ouch.
This person is obviously not interested in you, so he or she is not giving you full attention. Rather than focus on you and your story, that person seems to be just looking for a way out of the conversation. The worse part is, she may not even realize she is doing it to you.
Now let’s change the setting to home life: Your kid is telling you a funny story about what happened today in class, and you appear to be listening, but you reflexively glance down at your phone constantly throughout the conversation. Your happy kid notices the distraction, and he suddenly slumps, understanding that you are more interested in your iPhone than you are in him. Double ouch.
This happens more often than we think, but when it comes to winning customers, this is display of disinterest is definitely a big no-no. It’s apparent that we are not paying enough attention to what is most important in our lives. Our attention is divided in so many ways, by so many different distractions. Come to think of it, when was the last time you gave your full attention to something or someone?
We are constantly distracted. Each day, there always seems to be something that presents itself as another obstacle to our focus. This is the challenge for marketers and salesperson everyday. It’s easy to say that we can to make the sale, but if you really think about it, it’s how we focus and give our full attention to a potential customer or current client that really matters. When you do other things when you’re having a conversation with them, you’re not really multitasking. You’re simply not paying attention.
- How do you signal your genuine attention?
- How self-aware are you of your genuine inattention habits?
- Have you noticed when others do this to you – how do you respond?
