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*** ‘Speak Better - FAST!… in Seven Easy Steps’ by Kaye Browne. ***
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WHY WE HEAR BUT WE DON’T LISTEN - by Brian Pickering
I’ll be honest up-front… I have a VERY short attention span when it comes to speeches. Unless they grab me in the first 30 seconds or so, I’m outta there… mentally anyway!
Boring monotone voices are the worst for me.
As a kid I developed a keen sense of listening to the radio. Mostly radio plays and the latest rock ‘n roll music taking the world by storm. Then later listening to far away voices via the short-wave radio (with all its whistles, crackle and pop)
That fascination with sound prompted a move to London and a job as a music recording engineer at Island Records Studio where I learned how to listen from the very best. Producers Glyn Johns (Rolling Stones et al) Brian Humphries (Pink Floyd) and musical arranger Paul Samuel-Smith (London Symphony Orchestra etc) were among the amazing mentors who taught me how to listen to the many subtle differences in music.
Whether its rock, rap, classical or any genre you need to be able to train your brain to tune out unnecessary clutter so you can listen closely and understand what you’re listening to, to get the desired end result.
So, how do you learn HOW to listen? How do you help your audience hear and understand what you’re trying to tell them?
The good news is that there’s a handful of very easy steps – seven in fact – that you can start using right now that will guarantee your message is not only HEARD, but UNDERSTOOD – or ‘listened to’ by your audience.
Hearing Vs Listening
But first let’s look at the difference between hearing and listening.
Parents of young or teenage children would be very familiar with this phenomena.
You’re talking to the child giving some instruction or request and looking for a response but you may as well be ‘talking to a brick wall’, right?
Or perhaps your man is engrossed in watching a game of late night footie and you ask in your nicest non-confrontational voice “don’t forget to take out the garbage dear” (yeah ok – no worries!).
And it’s not just kids, teens or football loving blokes either…
Although they will all deny it categorically, females can also have trouble ‘tuning in’. Have you ever wondered who is actually ‘listening’ in that group of ladies having lunch at the next table when all of them appear to be talking at the same time? (Ok – let’s not go there - but you get my very tongue-in-cheek meaning I hope!)
In fact getting we human beings to LISTEN – getting us to PAY ATTENTION is actually an advertiser’s worst nightmare. There’s so much of it in our faces every day, in newspapers and magazines, television and radio, on billboards and vehicles - is it any wonder we all start to ‘TUNE-OUT’?
This is why advertisers and their agencies are always looking for ways to ‘grab our attention’.
The same is true for anyone making a speech, doing a presentation or even going for a job.
Clever Advertising
Just recently there was a very clever radio and TV campaign starring comedienne Julia Morris.
The ads were all very well written and recorded - a series of three or four of them I think - with Julia cutting across other people who are trying to sell her something which she obviously is not the least bit interested in.
That particular ad campaign grabbed a lot of attention. But did it actually get across the message to ‘buy brand X breakfast cereal?’
Well – it certainly grabbed my attention which is no mean feat because I know I tune-out of ads most of the time. That’s probably because I’ve written and produced several thousand ads over the years as a radio producer.
But I guess if I was ‘in the market’ for breakfast cereal and saw the brand mentioned in the supermarket then I’d probably try it at least once – and THAT’S all the advertiser wants you to do. At the end of the day they have succeeded in getting their message across. You’ve listened and ‘taken that message on-board’ – they win.
And YOU can win too – getting YOUR message across to the listener.
But you need to understand a few of the ways we listen first.
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*** ‘Speak Better - FAST!… in Seven Easy Steps’ by Kaye Browne. ***
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The boss at a radio station where I was working was chewing my ear one day, complaining like he always did about his life, his boss, his useless sales team, his feelings of 
unhappiness.
Hi, I’m Kaye Browne…
