{"id":8,"date":"2012-08-09T14:22:29","date_gmt":"2012-08-09T14:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rustamirani.com\/?p=8"},"modified":"2012-08-14T18:08:50","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T18:08:50","slug":"listen-to-me-i-know-what-i-am-talking-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/?p=8","title":{"rendered":"Listen to me, I know what I am talking about!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally posted on August 1, 2010<\/em><\/p>\n

In a sales training course I took, the instructor mentioned that one of the essential s\"\"<\/a>teps to being successful at selling is listening.\u00a0 She went on to tell us that in most conversations you have, you should try to speak 20% of the time and listen the other 80%.\u00a0 She bluntly said, ask an open ended question then shut up and listen.\u00a0 Over the years I have experienced the power of listening and the fact that people like to be heard.\u00a0 Solomon covers this one in the Book of Proverbs by stating, \u201cHe who answers a matter before he hears it is not wise\u201d\u00a0 (see<\/em> Proverbs 18:13)\u00a0 This skill has proved a great deal of worth to me in business and in life.<\/p>\n

In Business\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

A couple of years ago I had a meeting with one of my clients who owned a commercial landscaping business.\u00a0 As soon as we sat down, I asked him how his week was going and then just LISTENED.\u00a0 Our conversation lasted nearly an hour and half.\u00a0 During this time, I spoke for a total of probably 10 minutes and mainly just asked questions.\u00a0 I was shocked when my client stood up thanked me for my excellent advice and said he was excited about our discussion and all of the things he was going to work on to improve his business. \u00a0The greatest part was when he called me a couple of days later to tell me all of things he worked on and did to improve his business.<\/p>\n

In Life\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In my final years in college and soon after, I started to catch myself not listening, focusing or even paying attention to people when they were talking to me.\u00a0 In addition, I often times found myself finishing sentences for people and then changing the subject.\u00a0 I realized this when it happened at work once and my co-worker was not too happy about it.\u00a0 From that day forward I have made a conscious effort to listen more and talk less. This is not an easy skill to master, but it is a very important one.\u00a0 Make a conscious effort to listen to your friends, colleagues, wife\/husband, and most importantly your kids.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Below are some reasons to improve your listening skills:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To avoid saying wrong things, being thoughtless<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To generate a feeling that you care<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To process the conversation and understand the persons thoughts<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To make the other person feel important and recognize them<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To get the person to listen to you.
\nOver the years I have had the opportunity to meet and speak with some great leaders, authors and educators.\u00a0 One of my more memorable meetings was when I met John Maxwell.\u00a0 John Maxwell has written a number of books including: The 21 irrefutable laws of Leadership, Leadership Gold, The 360\u00b0 Leader<\/em> to name a few.\u00a0 He has trained over 2 million business leaders and sold over 13 million books.\u00a0 After a seminar I attended, I waited in line to get his autograph which took forever.\u00a0 When I finally met him, his first words were:\u00a0 Hello, it\u2019s nice to meet you, now tell me a little about you.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe that he cared to listen to me talk about myself.\u00a0 Find any GREAT leader, mentor, husband, or dad, and I guarantee you they listen more than they talk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted on August 1, 2010 In a sales training course I took, the instructor mentioned that one of the essential steps to being successful at selling is listening.\u00a0 She went on to tell us that in most conversations you have, you should try to speak 20% of the time and listen the other 80%.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19,"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rustamirani.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}