Dec 13, 2019
Communication can be very hard
sometimes. There are times that you feel what you are saying and
what I’m saying is very different. And these communication barriers
hurt.
Dean Soto shares his experience in this podcast episode on how he addressed his communication barriers with his wife and how this will help in business.
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Automated Transcript Below:
Dean Soto 0:00
Hey, this is Dean Soto founder of freedom in five minutes.com and
pro silom.com pr o su LUM calm. And we're here again with another
freedom in five minutes episode. Today's topic is this
communication barriers that hurt and why what you are saying and
what I'm saying is very different. That and more coming up. Well,
good morning good evening, good afternoon, wherever you might be or
whenever you might be listening to this. It's good, good to good to
be able to connect with you hope you are doing well during this
Christmas season. So the wife and I and all of our kids went to
Hillcrest tree farm. Hillcrest tree farm. My, my wife and I are
very different. Very, very, very different. Christmas time comes
around Advent starts, you know a couple of days ago. And my wife is
like we are late. We are late getting our Christmas tree. We are
late what is going on and and it on? For all intents and purposes
it seems like I'm not the only one who thinks or she's not the only
one that thinks I'm late because our normal place where we get our
tree was completely sold out. Well, apparently Christmas comes
early, early, early nowadays. And so my wife is like you late. What
is going on? You better get this tree going. Let's go. So yesterday
we went to the Hillcrest tree farm. It's it's it is interesting
because it is it's definitely further away from where I thought we
were going to go. But we had a really cool experience so on the
drive there was it was more than time we stopped by this really
cute little American diner that that my kids loved. I was surprised
that they loved the diner so much it really it was just like a
small little diner and they serve food just like good like a
Denny's is very Americana and, and my, my daughter who's gonna have
her birthday next next month or next week, she she's like Daddy,
can can we come here for my birthday? I'm like, Sure. Okay. So
totally surprised. And then after that, we went to the tree farm
and it was a cute little. It was a cute little spot. It was there
was there was there were some there was a train. They had a Santa
and whole bunch of trees that were overpriced. And they had kind of
a treehouse, but it was fun. Because the treehouse upon inspection
was not really built on a tree they it was had a tree underneath
it, but they they cut out the tree for whatever reason. So it
looked like it was sitting on the tree but they had these metal
pylons and stuff like that. And now that I'm building stuff now I'm
building treehouses. Now I'm building all this other stuff. I'm
definitely inspecting going, how they did this and then I saw that
they actually did not build it on a tree. It was they saw a big
part of it was not even touching the tree that was underneath it.
And so anyway, I don't know why they did that. But say lovey, it is
why they did it. So, all that being said, we were just done with
all the fun and festivities and everything like that we had to
choose our tree. Well, my wife, she knows she knows our house
really, really well. We have 10 foot ceilings, the 10 foot ceilings
Maybe 11 foot ceilings might be 11 foot ceilings. And so she knew
that we should probably get a tree around seven to eight feet with
the tree be more on the eight foot side along along that side. So
I'm like, Yeah, that sounds great. So we start looking and the kids
are kind of going crazy all over the place. And not all of them but
but the younger ones especially. And I'm telling my wife wow, you
know this, she's showing me the some of the trees and I said and I
and I said, Yeah, that looks great. That looks great. And we even
looked at this bigger trend. I said, Yeah, you know what, we might
want to go bigger this year just because we don't know right? We
don't know if they get it with our ceilings and everything like
that. What if it's too small and then it just makes it look
scrawny? And, and I'm sitting there agreeing with her and whatever
I would give my opinion. She would, she would kind of ignore it.
She was just
kind of be like, Okay, and then move on to the next and then asked for my opinion and then kind of tell me, hey, you're not really you know, you're not really giving me you know, any feedback? And I'm like, What are you talking about? I am giving you feedback, I'm telling you that this one looks great. I like this one, this is great height, and, and all these other things. And the same thing went with with my other daughter who communicates very similar in a similar way that I do. So here I am saying that these these ones look great. I think that I think you should actually go with this one and so on and so forth. Well, in the meantime, my wife is communicating that she wants my feedback, but is also giving this aura of you're not giving me the feedback that I want. And so what ensued was a disagreement of epic proportions. She got hurt because she felt like she wasn't getting the feedback. I got hurt because I felt like she was ignoring me. And when it all came down to it, she ended up just go grabbing it treed asking two of the kids that she really, really communicates well with us to the kids, what their favorite tree was got that tree and got it all set up to go and everything like that. And we ended up we ended up having a quite a bit of a bit of an argument and there were tears. There were actual tears over a Christmas tree. And when all said and done it was it was actually pretty cute because we had to go to we had to go to Target so we can get some food for church because we're going to church that night. And we were bringing food for after the service and everything like that. And we went to Target. I felt bad. And so I said, You know, I left all the kids in the car with the older older one watching them. And I went and got her in myself a Starbucks. And, you know, I'm feeling bad about the whole thing. And I definitely communicated, didn't communicate well. And then she went and got all the stuff that she needed a target. She pulls up to the van. So I go back to the van to surprise her with a Starbucks. She hasn't she's she's inside the Starbucks, by the way. She went by herself to go get a whole bunch of stuff. I just went out real quick to get a Starbucks. For us, came back, I came back I put the Starbucks into the center console. And she came back and she had a Starbucks, for me and for her as well. which showed that, you know, she was feeling bad about it. I was feeling bad about it. And we apologize to each other and we We made up for sure. But when it all came down to it were like, We came to the realization that we were both saying essentially the same thing. We were both. So she was saying, I need your opinion, I need your help. And I and I was actually, I was saying, I would love to help and I'm giving you my opinion. But but in both cases, it was received in the completely opposite way. In both cases, it was received in a negative. I thought that she had her own what she had in mind, she wanted her own way she had her own thoughts. She didn't want my opinion, every time I give my opinion, she would shut it down. And she thought that I was that I was just saying, well, you you pick since you know the house and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. And and after analyzing and looking at it, going Going No, that's not that's not what I was saying at all you come to I've come to the realization and this is this always happens this happens with any type of interpersonal communication is that you could essentially be saying the same thing, you can essentially be saying what your customer wants, you can essentially be saying what your coworker would like all of these, you can you can be saying things the way that is positive and edifying and all other stuff, but if the other person doesn't receive, how that how that is transmitted, kind of like the mode and medium and, and if it's translated translate, translated to them, how it's how it's actually said to them is not the way that they want it to be.
or, or, or it's a way that's kind of abrasive. Even if it's positive, you can actually even if it's positive, even if it's something that would normally in a different circumstance, make them extremely happy, you can actually lose them. You can actually make them angry or sad or mad or whatever it is. And so when you're dealing with customers, some of them might love text messages. Some of them might not. You could have the same message in a text message that you put into an email like this exact same message. And one customer is going to like it when customers not. Some might like I had one I have one customer because I send gifts in the mail. I have one customer who was like, love that you're sending gifts in the mail, but you're sending too much sweets. You're sending too many sweets and And so for them like my other customers like, yeah, keep sending the brownies Kansas keep sending this stuff is great. So depending on how you are communicating, and how your trans had translating, or or transporting or transposing that communication can really depend whether a customer is going to appreciate what you're doing or not. It's really good to tell it's going to it's going to determine whether that customer is going to get the actual true message that you're trying to give them or not. They're either going to feel loved, or they're going to feel like you do not know me
and it's through that Through that, that you're able to determine and you're able to give a ton of value to your client in a way that in a way that you would not be able to do otherwise, if you did not know how they like to be communicated, you run the risk of destroying that entire relationship, even if you are giving them what you feel what you believe, to be nice things to be value added things.
So what are you doing right now? What do you know about your customers? What do you know about the people who whom you serve that allow you to differentiate and segment and personalize On a scalable business basis, your relationship and the things that you in the value that you want to give them. challenge you this week to see how well do you know your clients? And not just from Oh, I know them in my head. How well do you how much data do you have on them in your CRM, your customer relationship manager? How much data do you actually have on them? Do you have their spouse's name? Do you have their birthday? Do you have their likes and dislikes? do you have? You have where they where they live? Do you have their mobile phone? Do you have their opt in to for letting you do mobile? Do you have Do you have their anniversary date? Do you have how much they've spent with you how recently they spent with you? how frequent frequently they spend money money with you Who are your top 20 and 20% clients? These are this is all data that allows you to scale that attention that you otherwise couldn't scale. So I challenge you this week to make all of that a reality that challenge you that this week to make all of that all of this together as much data to see what Elysee what you have, and see where you can start gathering that will differentiate you from everyone else. Alright, so this is Dean Soto, thank you so much for being here with me is a pleasure. And I will see you in the next freedom in five minutes podcast episode.