Networking Skill: Listening – Stop Doing These Things

To finish my series of tips about listening as the most important networking skill, I would like to share some things to stop doing when listening to people.

• Stop judging.
• Stop talking! It is difficult to listen and speak at the same time.
• Stop thinking you already know what’s going to be said.
• Stop hanging on to your own opinion and your desire to be right.
• Stop focusing on what you are going to say next.
• Stop thinking that listening is the same as not talking.
• Stop thinking that you can’t be a good listener.

I would like to conclude these tips about listening with a quote from Dale Carnegie:

“A professional networker is someone who attentively listens…
to a subject he knows everything about…
told by someone who knows nothing about it”.

To your success !

Jan

PS: this is an excerpt from my book “Let’s Connect!”. You can download a free light version of the networking book Let’s Connect in English (or het netwerk boek Let’s Connect in Dutch)