I recently discovered this video of a confrontation between a news reporter and a PR guy (embedded below.) It's a bit uncomfortable to watch because you have a PR guy who won't keep his hands to himself and clearly has a message he wants to communicate (or not communicate as the case may be.) On the other hand you have a reporter who's needs to just relax a second and not sound and look like a jerk.
Shut Up And Listen
The thing that strikes me is that if either one of these guys had stopped to listen to the other one they could have actually had a dialogue, or at least a less confrontational exchange. Instead you get this strange scenario where each guy is going to keep on saying (and doing) whatever he wants despite the other guy's best efforts.
Connecting the Dots: New Or Old Thinking?
I can't help but wonder if we do this in our marketing efforts sometimes. We get so focused on what we want to say that we don't listen. The old marketing mindset is that you tell people how great you are and hope they eventually believe it. The new approach is to earn attention by giving something away that's valuable enough to be attention worthy. That's a significant difference in thinking and acting but it makes all the difference in the world. If you listen to people you're going to know what they want or need and then you'll be able to meet that demand. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself like the guys in the video: