If a client falls in the woods....

Are you there to hear it? Are you listening? What do you hear?  

You remember the saying: "One mouth, two ears," right?  What does that mean for sales professionals and marketers? I think...I may be going out on a limb here...that it means we (sales/marketing pros) need to spend more time listening and more importantly, understanding our audiences. 

In the world of B2B, IMHO,  there is still too much show up and throw up, or as Sandler puts it...spilling your jelly beans in the lobby.  Do you go to your doctor only for him to tell you what is wrong with you before a single question is asked? I think not! Yet, having spent half a lifetime with or in sales, I see it over and over ... "I hear you are looking for a Woozawhatzit, let me tell you all about ours and why we are better at selling it!" Classic 'FAB' (features, advantages, benefits) or the bizzaro version 'FUD' (fear, uncertainty, doubt) selling should be deadwood - but it seems they are not.  Are sales and marketing professionals not supposed to seek first to understand before being understood? 

As I reflect on my past 9 years of work, I am guilty of letting this behavior proliferate all around me. And guiltier still of advancing it, nurturing it with collateral and content demanded by the pitchfork bearing sales masses.  "We need this content marketing ogre or we'll burn your village down." So we produced to save the village. 

I may not have the answer, yet, but that may be because the right question hasn't been asked.