Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

It is amazing to think that many of the issues that arise in marketing can be solved with basic principles learned in elementary school. Recently, I commented on fellow blogger, Lindy Dreyer post, 'Rediscovering the Art of Listening' In this post, Lindy Dreyer talked about how we often get so swept up in what we’re trying to communicate that we forget to listen.

Listening is an 'art form' that takes time and effort to master.

It is an ability that seems to have been lost as generations evolve into a mindset that quantity outranks quality, and this is not the case.

Older generations had the ability to 'connect' with members/customers because they listened to them and had conversations that went further than just business and into personal lives. They built relationships on trust because they listened and members/customers never thought twice about where they would turn if they needed something.

With the broad reach we are give through new technological advances in social networking, it is much more easier to trust the technology than the person using the technology. Time is not spent on listening to the problems, concerns, what's working, what's not, etc from the members/customers. It is seen as a waste of time - time that could have been spent talking to three other people. We need to use the Listen-talk-listen-assess-contribute relationship that the previous generations knew so well of and, in turn, saw greater results.

I have noticed this within my association which provides products to our members in addition to traditional associational services such as networking opportunities, industry news/updates, etc. There was a point in time where our members would call and say they needed a certain quantity of product A to be delivered by a certain date. They did not ask for endless information, request documentation stating authentication, etc - they knew that this association they were a part of was working for them to get the best pricing and products available. These were people they dealt with on a regular basis, people who had taken time from their busy schedule to step out and visit their company site 2000 miles away, people who listened to them and knew when their neighbors dog was sick.

Today, unfortunately, that simply is not the case. This is not because we have forgotten why our association exist, the members. It is because there is so many other things that we think we need to accomplish in the day that listening just becomes a thing we do in our spare time. And this not only exist on the association level, but on the member level as well.

With all the various ways that our members have to get information, the messages we convey often get lost in the everyday shuffle. We find that our emails find their way into the morning delete pile, that our magazines are place in a stack labeled 'things to read when I have time' and our mail gets filtered over while our members are looking for that payment that is three weeks late. If anything, this trend should teach us as marketers that we should listen to our constituents more effectively and focus our marketing efforts to something that benefits them, something that won't get overlooked. In today's society, we are given such a small window of time to get our point across, and often times it is not well utilized.

Most of us were told as a child in elementary school, 'hearing and listening are two different things.' I think that this is something that many people have forgotten and could use a refresher course in. As Lindy mentioned, people need to rediscover the art of listening if they want to see results. And, it the association world where members are not only another customer, but owners/partners/stakeholders, what have you, listening suddenly becomes all the more important of a task to master.

Quit Fishing and Look for the Dancing Bear

My goal here is not to continue an endless cycle of linking to blogs which link to blogs, I wanted to post my thoughts on something that Jamie Notter said in his blog which references this video.

This video is amazing proof that, as Jamie puts it, "our brains have limited bandwidth when it comes to paying attention". However, I wanted to take this a bit further.

I often times remind my sales team to go and look on our 200+ Members (corporate members) websites and blogs to find out what they are doing in their service area. I ask them to keep up on the technologies that they are using, the employees that are retiring, the community events they are involved in, etc. It seems that many times, in our marketing plans, we have specific products and services that we choose to promote throughout the year. Many times, in determining what to promote, we must "fish" for ideas and think of what our Members would like to see the Association do within the industry. As many of you can attest, this is not always successful and the ROI is minimal.

This video is a perfect example of why we should turn the tables. Instead of "fishing" for ideas, let our Members tell us what they would like to see promoted, discussed, and accomplished within their association. All the time in the world can be spent on promoting the ideas originally planned, but that can cause us to loose track of what our Members want and need. We must be flexible in our marketing pushes, looking consistently at what our Members are doing in the industry and forming our plans around them.

This is, in fact, the benefit of being a part of any association. Members pay to join an association that conforms to their needs, that listens to problems and successes, that pays attention to the wants and needs, and as a result, an association that benefits them in more than one aspect.

And for those of you who are wondering what happens to all the time placed into creating a marketing plan for specific product and service pushes, I think that it will be will justified with the increase in Member retention and increased ROI on your marketing efforts.