At a networking event recently, I bumped into Elizabeth, an old colleague from a previous job. As it was a busy event, we both agreed that we should sit down for a coffee to have a proper catch up, so we arranged to meet the following week.
With the chance to talk properly, it turned out that through our various contacts, we were both in a position to help each other. I was really excited – her current role was on a project with a client that I’d been interested to get an introduction to, and amongst other things, I’d done a speaking session for a franchise business that her firm really wanted to pitch for.
As the meeting progressed, I took copious notes on who she needed to talk to, how I could set up the meeting, what I needed to say to get over the initial barrier that often comes up of “oh, we’ve already got someone who deals with that for us…” – basically all the information I needed to help her.
At the same time though – Elizabeth was sat there, not writing a single thing down – she had no notepad, no laptop, no phone – just her now empty cup of coffee. Worse than that, she didn’t even look interested in the conversation – she seemed to be far more entertained by her spoon, that she was tapping gently on the side of the cup: by the end of the meeting, it was all I could do to stop myself grabbing the spoon!
On the train back to the office, I received an email from Elizabeth, confirming that she had spoken to each of the 3 people that I’d been keen to be introduced to, she’d told them a little bit about why I thought they would be interested to talk to me, and confirmed that they’d all been very happy to take my call.
Wow!
What had happened? I thought she’d been disinterested – whereas in reality she’d taken in every single bit of detail she’d needed to make the introductions.
Elizabeth is an auditory learner – she takes in information by discussion, and listening. I, as a predominantly visual learner, really struggle to retain information unless I write it down.
If Elizabeth HAD written everything down, the chances were she wouldn’t have retained the information, because the very act of writing would have hurt her concentration levels. Her way of concentrating was to play with the coffee spoon – the very thing that visually almost drove me to distraction!
Appreciating how businesspeople learn may just be crucial in understanding how to best refer each other. Have you ever seen your networking contacts behaving in a way that feels alien to you?
Charlie Lawson – BNI National Director and Word of Mouth marketing expert, whose passion is to see BNI members succeed in their businesses.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I tend to concentrate by listening too when it’s just a one to one basis. If it’s a larger meeting I tend to scribble things down though. Most I.T types are auditory type folk or possibly kinasthetic (talking with your hands)
Thank you for commenting. I wouldn’t have thought that your preferred way of taking in information would change depending on the setting (i.e. 1-1 meeting or group meeting) – however, it is quite likely you’ve got multiple learning styles – lots of people will have a dominant preference and then a secondary or even a tertiary one too.
This is so true, I was once taking minutes in a meeting, after the meeting my manager took me to one side and told me off about my facial expression as she thought I wasn’t listening …. I then produced really good minutes and she realised that my ‘gormless’ expression was because I WAS concentrating rather than her assumed opposite.
Fascinating – that sounds like a very similar situation to mine. Thanks for commenting!
Did she explain to you why out of sudden she called all of your three contacts, maybe something change her mind.
The interesting thing was that she didn’t change her mind – she was always going to call her contacts – it was just her body language that made ME believe she wasn’t going to.
I am doing the same. I often do not make notes and sometimes I think seeing what people scribble down that the notes are useless for them later. They note only single words and sometimes not the main point I want to emphasize. Of course I am not in the position to assess if their notes are usable later for them, but if I would remember anything from them, I wouldn’t so.
Do you think that people sometimes make notes for the courtesy reasons?
That’s an interesting point – I wonder if people do just feel they SHOULD make notes, whereas actually, if they are predominantly auditory learners, they probably don’t need to. As a visual learner myself, I know that I definitely NEED notes to remember things!