It's Good to Talk...
I had a conversation today where someone reminded me that people buy people. It’s not a new concept but it is one I had forgotten. In the current climate I am busy doing thing quickly (to a high standard I might add, but quickly) and with a level of flexibility I had not needed before – it is not unusual these days for me to still be working at 11pm because I’ve picked up the children or been to meetings during ‘normal’ 9-5 hours.
This means that a lot of my communication happens over email (because people don’t thank you for calling them in the evenings) and I didn’t really think anything of that until today – other than that I was getting my list sorted and things ticked off.
Today I had a call with someone who I had spoken to several times before on email, I had had a request for information through another client who was acting as a middle man so a lot of the conversations we had had to date had been a 3 way conversation or a Chinese whispers passing on of information. I provided what I thought was needed, I answered the questions I thought had been asked, I got increasingly frustrated with the pushback I was getting.
Needless to say, as you can probably tell from my choice of language what ‘I thought’ was needed and what was actually needed are two very different things. Today this lovely person and I had a chat, for an hour and a half – we did the usual covid round up, got to know each other, talked more about our businesses and I got to really listen – first-hand – to what they needed. Out of that I was a lot clearer, my to do list for their business changed, my quote altered dramatically, and I got excited all over again about working with them.
It is so easy to send emails out, to answer questions quickly and efficiently but at the end of the day you cannot beat a proper conversation and getting to know someone – and their needs – properly. As BT used to say ‘It’s Good to Talk’ (although they would say that as us nattering on the phone is what paid their wages but I actually mean it!)