A picture paints a thousand meaningless words

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Well sometimes it does. I had seen a photo in a promo book of 2 people. 1 I knew quite well and the other I had never met. All I knew about the guy I hadn’t met was that he was from Dunedin.

His picture looked perfectly “normal” and I guess our brains can’t help themselves, they just automatically build up an image of what this person should be like, if you know what I mean.

So today I met this guy and he was totally not what I was expecting. Now I didn’t realise that I was expecting anything until we shook hands and he started talking and I thought, “Wow he is so not what I expected!”

Hopefully I’m making some sense here, my point is that in every property deal, every agent or vendor we meet, we will be making assumptions and putting expectation on those people that may be totally inappropriate and kill the deal.

Think about it for a minute, if you meet a dreadlocked tattoo’d person you will not expect them to be the same as a white collar worker. Whether you consciously think it or not you will treat the two people very differently, which is sometimes a mistake. And it’s only if we consciously look for our preconceptions that we can catch them and not let them influence our relationship.

So back to my meeting today, I guess that maybe because I knew this guy was from Dunedin that I was expecting Joe average. As I said I wasn’t thinking this way but it was the fact that he wasn’t what I was expecting that made me realise I was expecting something different.

So as soon as he opened his mouth it became obvious that this guy was highly intelligent, had a strong business ethic and was very “likable”.

So as I have learned to observe my own behaviour I realised that I instantly “stepped up” my game in terms of really listening to what these guys were saying. It changed from “another meeting” to a meaningful interaction between people who were connecting at a deeper level.

I wonder if I used to do this intuitively and now I know how to listen to myself but it is definitely a skill we can cultivate. try it tomorrow. At work or where ever, look for someone you don’t know well and observe them for a bit. Decide what they will sound like, whether they are clever or thick, sophisticated or simple, nasty or kind.
Then strike up a conversation and see how low your preconception score might be.

Stay Safe Dean Letfus @ www.massiveaction.co.nz