Appear to Care

When Jonathan Greene went on his first business call of the week, he was upbeat and excited. You see, Jonathan was a commercial banking representative, and he had been on his job for one month. He arrived at the offices of Mary Pierce to meet her and to get to know her better.
He was basically an account manager, her personal customer service agent.

Jonathan's company had recently bought Mary's previous bank and therefore had taken over Mary's commercial banking relationship.

When they met, Jonathan was dressed in a well-pressed suit and took a seat in Mary's office. As they began to talk, Mary provided a business card to Jonathan, and Jonathan searched for and found one of his to provide to her. They discussed her prior banking relationship, the people she knew in that bank, and the services she had utilized. Even though this banking acquisition had only occurred three months prior to this meeting, there had been several issues in the transition relating to service charges and online account access, and the two discussed the problems. And after about 20-25 minutes, the meeting ended.

Here were Mary's observations of Jonathan:
- "He kept shuffling these business cards in his hands like a deck of cards after I gave him mine - very distracting."
- "He also kept looking at the cards, like there was something interesting about them."
- "The way he leaned back in his chair gave me the impression that he was kind of cocky, that he was more interested in TELLING me things than LISTENING to me."
- "It ticked me off when I mentioned that I really liked the service from my account representatives at the previous bank, and then he stated that his bank had 'much better service.' All I had experienced with his bank were unexpected service charges and an inability to access my accounts online."
- "I wish I had my old bank back."

Jonathan's body language was a real turn-off to Mary. He conveyed that he was preoccupied and cocky instead of focused and listening. He further hurt his impression of being a good listener by making the comment about how much better his company's service was when Mary had just described how much she liked her prior bank and how many issues she had with Jonathan's bank.

Sometimes it's not about how you dress or how big your company is or the flashy business cards and marketing materials. It's about how you listen and are perceived to listen.

Appear like you care.