Book Report, Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is titled “An Easy Way to Be a Good Conversationalist” and I’ve found this chapter to be remarkably true in my own life. The basic idea is to be a good listener. Remembering from my past report, people are principally interested in themselves. “…the people you are talking to are a hundred times more interested in themselves and their wants and problems than they are in you and your problems. A person’s toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one’s neck interest on more than forty earthquakes in Africa” (p. 93).

As always, a story to illustrate the point:

…I met a distinguished botanist at a dinner party given by a New York publisher. I had never talked with a botanist before and I found him fascinating. I literally sat on the edge of my chair and listened while he spoke of the exotic plants and experiments in developing new forms of plant life and indoor gardens (and even told me astonishing facts abou the humble potato). I had a small indoor garden of my own-and he was good enough to tell me how to solve some of my problems.

… Midnight came. I said good night to everyone and departed. The botanist then turned to our host and paid me several flattering compliments. I was “most stimulating.” I was this and I was that, and he ended by saying I was a “most interesting conversationalist.”

An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said hardly anything at all. I couldn’t have injected anything if I had wanted to without changing the subject, for I didn’t’ know any more about botany thank I knew about the anatomy of a penguin. But I had done this: I had listened intently. (p. 85)

When I first started sales I had to take a training class where the instructor reiterated throughout that I was to be doing 20% of the talking and the prospect was to do 80% on an appointment. I follow this rule closely not because I was told to but because it works. Most of my clients adore me and I them. While this sounds cocky, I’m proud to be able to accurately state it. I know their weekend activities, their kid’s due date and get invited to their weddings because I am sincerely interested in them on both professional and a personal level.

Former Harvard President Charles W. Eliot was quoted in saying “There is no mystery about successful business intercourse…. Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you is very important. Nothing else is so flattering as that.” I could not agree more. This statement is fact in both the business world and the social world and living by this creed does wonders in both.