Listen if you want to be heard
Want your message to be heard? Start by listening. Here’s why, and how to do it well.
Why listen?
Organisations that truly connect with people put those they serve at the centre of all they do. How do you do that? By reaching out to your clients / customers and other stakeholders; asking them the right questions and listening hard to what they say.
This listening/client feedback process has long been at the heart of my approach. Whether I’m helping a client set future direction, find their connecting story or work out what content will be truly valuable, collecting outside feedback is the lynch pin that holds it all together. It’s invariably listening to clients and customers which provides the insight that’s sparked the best ideas, on any coaching or consultancy project that comes in.
“Listening is a powerful act: you have to put yourself out to do it.” ~ David Hockney
Marketers and strategists too often go into a huddle in a boardroom to work out the next steps. But that invariably leads to strategies that are internally focussed, based on assumption. If you want a more 360 approach, seek feedback and bring this evidence into the room too.
Get out there, ask good questions and listen really hard.
Where and when to listen
Here’s where listening is invaluable, and a whistle stop tour of how to do it well.
Listen for strategy
The absolute business fundamentals. Where does your true value lie?
Talking to a range of your customers/stakeholders about how, why and where they use you can help you get your offer and positioning straight.
Listen for story
How do you tell the story of what you do? What’s your business purpose?
That might feel like it has to come from you – it’s your story, right? But if it’s not grounded in your customer’s world too, it won’t resonate with them. Self-absorbed stories don’t win any fans. Listen hard to the challenges your customers are facing, and weave those into your story, so it feels relevant.
“Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” —Jeff Bezos
Your story is out there. Just ask your customers and other advocates who recommending you to others. What story are they telling? How do they describe who you are and the reason you exist? You’ll be amazed at what you hear - people on the outside often tell the story far better.
Listen for tone of voice
Tone of voice is one of those slippery things it can be hard to pin down. A warm and engaging tone of voice makes a huge difference to the way your brand is perceived. But what does that actually mean in practice? How do you know which words to use in your email newsletter? What language will engage your audience on your website home page? Listening to your customers is really helpful here.
Good, clear and simple language is your baseline, but to create a tone of voice that genuinely feels like it’s talking your customers’ language, use your customers’ language. How? Well, a light touch approach could mean listening to check that you’re not using any jargon that your customers never use. Ridding your website of internal focused language will make it more helpful and easier to understand.
If you want to go deeper, listen more. Record conversations with clients, work to unpick how their language is constructed, and reflect it back in your communications. What metaphors do they use? Which comparisons do they make? What patterns of words do they use to describe the before and after of the way you help them? This kind of information is marketing gold dust.
Listen for content ideas
Our perennial favourite. The very best content ideas will come from your customers. Answering their questions will give you blog, video and podcast ideas for the rest of the year and beyond.
Listen to support change
Business doesn’t stand still. Listening supports strategic change. If you build listening into your business activities you’ll be ahead of the curve when it comes to meeting changing needs - inside and outside the organisation. Ask questions that delve deeper than a straightforward ‘how are we doing?’ into ‘describe the challenges in your world.’
It means you’ll have the evidence you need to change the way you do things or what you offer. Listening can de-risk change. It means a change of direction won’t be a stab in the dark, rather a response to your customers’ guiding lights.
Listen for alignment
Listening to people inside your organisation will flush out good ideas and help to bring people on the journey with you. Because you’ve listened, they feel heard.
(Read: Engagement - the secret to any successful rebrand)
Feedback is a welcome boost of confidence. I’ve conducted this listening process for many organisations and the feedback they’ve received from their customers has been overwhelmingly positive. Any criticism is constructive. Good feedback is a welcome boost for everyone.
How to listen
Change expert, Jane Northcote, showed me the value of outside feedback early in my career. I was working as business development lead in a niche management consultancy business. We were looking to sharpen up our positioning. ‘Start with what works now’, said Jane. ‘Let’s ask clients’. The outcome of this first listening project was eye opening and transformational. The feedback showed us what people appreciated, where the real opportunity lay for the business, and gave us better language to describe what we did. Listening to outside voices has become part of my process ever since.
I’ve honed this simple customer feedback process over the years. Here it is, in a nutshell.
Select a range of your best customers/clients and contacts. One call is better than no calls, but the more the merrier. A couple of examples: for a small business using customer feedback to help write their business story, aim for between 5 and 15. For a larger business using customer feedback to inform strategy decisions aim for upwards of 30.
Create a list of open-ended questions. You’re listening to understand their world, their challenges. Make them broader than a simple, ‘tell us how we’re doing.’
Decide whether you want to do the calls yourself, or need third party help. I’ve done it both ways, and both are valid, but often it can be easier for someone outside your business to ask searching questions on your behalf. It will be easier for people to answer honestly if they’re talking to a somebody independent and experienced.
Set up a time for the phone call via email. Explain what you’re doing, how it works and why.
Ask good questions and listen hard. There’s a real art to good listening.
Record the call. There are lots of recording options. Always ask for permission.
Transcribe the call, verbatim. You want the exact words, all of them. Your customers’ real words are infinitely more valuable than marketing persona guess work.
Analyse what you hear. Look for the patterns in the insight you’ve gathered. What does this tell you about the value this organisation delivers? Where does their sweetspot lie? Careful with AI analysis here - AI tools can help but I’ve found they miss the real golden insight.
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.” ~ Stephen R. Covey
Do listen
The single most useful thing that you can do to inform your brand, marketing and business strategy, is to invest in listening to outside voices.
Try it, test your assumptions. You’ll be amazed at the value you get back – real gems of wisdom and insight – marketing and business strategy gold!
Successful firms invest in client research – read Hinge Marketing’s 2024 High Growth Survey
And here’s how I can help you with this. Strategic stakeholder research and insight