Ok, some of you may have heard this statement before from your mother, girlfriend, wife, co-worker, etc. But I think it’s an important lesson that needs to be stated again, and in my opinion has many implications for the SEO/SEM environment as well.

HEARING - as defined by Wiktionary - is “The sense used to perceive sound,” which is something we do all day long. You hear lots of things like cars, wind, radio, typing, people, animals, etc. LISTENING - as defined by WordNet - is “the act of hearing attentively.” You most certainly are not attentive to each and every noise that you “hear,” so therefore you are not always LISTENING.

Now that we’ve established the difference between the two, let's discuss why it’s so important to understand and implement more listening than hearing when it comes to SEO/SEM.

How many times have you been sitting with a client and as soon as they were done explaining what’s been going on, you said, “Ok, here’s how the process works”? That doesn’t sound like you were listening very well. Sure, you heard them and maybe you can even remember some of the words they said. However, as we established above, when you are listening you are “hearing attentively.” You aren’t just letting someone tell you their wants, needs, and goals and then blurting out what you were waiting to say the whole time. You are digesting what your client/potential client is telling you and giving them feedback based on that.

It seems that we are often too eager to offer advice/knowledge/solutions before we’ve taken the time to listen and learn. Just because you happen to know a lot about a specific industry/field doesn’t mean you understand this particular situation. You’ve established that you are well respected in your industry; otherwise you wouldn’t be at the client. However, they aren’t looking for your process; they’re looking for a solution to their situation (not someone else’s situation).

Let’s take an example. Say you are sitting with a client that has just finished explaining to you what is going on, what they are looking to do and where they would like to take things. Rather than listening to them, you heard what they said and then started in on your pre-thought-out pitch. Halfway through your “pitch,” the client stops you and says, “But how is that going to solve X?” What do you do now? You didn’t take the time to listen and have now put yourself in a situation where you’ll either have to fumble for a while or swallow your pride and ask them to repeat what they’ve just told you. Either way, you’ve probably lost this account already. This could have all been avoided if you had listened from the start.

We all fall victim to this, but we have to learn to become good listeners. The best part about it is that when you really do start listening you also start learning. Learning things you never even thought about before, or things you thought you knew, but in reality didn’t have the first clue.

Thanks for taking the time to read (listen) to this post, and I hope it’s taken to heart. Your clients and potential clients will appreciate it, and who knows, you might just learn something!