No Trust, No Transaction

Someone says, “We’re pretty frustrated with our current system.”

We hear “current system” and our brains immediately go to work figuring out how our product might help.

Meanwhile, we kind of skipped over the most interesting word in the sentence.

“Frustrated.”

What if we just got curious about that?

“What’s been frustrating?”

“Every time we need to make a change, we have to involve IT. Sometimes it takes two weeks.”

“How’s that affecting things?”

“Honestly, it’s embarrassing. Marketing is constantly waiting on us.”

There’s another one. Embarrassing.

“Embarrassing?”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to be leading this team and half the time I’m apologizing for things I can’t control.”

Interesting, right?

We started out talking about software and somehow ended up talking about someone feeling like they’re letting their team down.

I think this matters more than we realize.

Because people want to feel understood. And there’s a big difference between understanding someone’s problem and making them feel like you understand what they’re going through.

If someone doesn’t feel understood, it’s hard for them to trust you.

And if they don’t trust you, they’re probably not going to buy from you.

I think we miss this stuff in everyday life, too.

My wife says she’s exhausted. I immediately start thinking about how to make her day easier.

A friend says he’s excited about a trip. I start telling him about a trip I took.

I’m trying to be helpful or relatable, but I’m not really listening anymore.

And I don’t think the answer is memorizing a bunch of clever questions. That just feels like another way to get stuck in our own heads.

Maybe it’s just noticing when someone says something that carries a little emotion and getting curious about it.

Not every conversation needs to turn into a therapy session, obviously.

I’m trying to get better at this.

Funny how much you can miss when you’re busy trying to contribute to a conversation instead of understanding the person you’re talking to.