better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

Listen When Your Friend Speaks

19 December 2011

I was lucky the other day, because a friend on Twitter complained to me that he was a bit fed up seeing tweets inviting people to head to Amazon and buy my book, called How To Keep Your Job.

He complained in that gently teasing way that friends can be so good at, so I didn’t feel hurt, just a bit nudged in the ribs.

I telephoned him (as that’s the correct verb here. Had I written ‘called him’, you might have thought I had hailed him over the fence in a neighbourly kind of way) and explained that tweeting sells books and that as an author my job is to write and sell books.

(Seasoned authors know that writing can be the easy bit – selling is the really hard slog).

‘Aha!’ He replied, ‘I hadn’t appreciated that. Fair enough!’

But the complaint remained, hovering in the air, like a, well, like a hovery thing – selling is ok, but over-selling isn’t.

So, I will be more mindful in the future of how often I tweet ‘Buy My Book It’s Great’ and more importantly will remember that if people need to hear a message 7 times before they act on it, they will be fed up after hearing that message 15 times.

And of course friendly feedback is the best because it’s truthful.

Next time a friend gives you a piece of feedback, don’t dismiss it – listen carefully, because although they might be smiling and teasing you, underneath their words is a little nugget of gold, for you to think about and act on!

Now, please stop reading this and go and buy my book! There’s still time before Christmas! Haha!