Hi, friends. Welcome to Advanced Studio Classroom. My name is Rebecca. Today is December the 4th, and we continue our management article, The Good News of Bad Reviews. And I’m so happy to have Gabe back on the program. Hey, Rebecca. Hello, everyone.

I’m glad to be back. Gabe, it’s always fun to have you on the program. Well, I want to ask, from yesterday’s program, we had a lot of words, we had a lot of concepts.

Is there a word or concept that you think is very valuable that we should share with our listeners online? I think listening is very important. Yes. The art of listening in general. That’s great.

To make people feel heard, whether you’re a business or representative of a business, like doing customer service, and you want to make people who leave reviews, especially bad reviews, you want to make them feel heard simply by engaging with them.

Maybe even apologizing for something, but at least letting them know, or maybe reminding them of what the brand stands for and where they can find help.

Any little thing, I think, goes a long way because you’re engaging with somebody, and that makes them feel heard. And so whether it’s that or just even in relationships in general, we want to feel like we are heard.

And so it’s important when you’re talking to somebody to really listen to what they have to say and not just think about the next thing you want to say. And to listen to the tone of voice as well.

Maybe they’re saying one thing, but their tone and their body language is saying something else. Are you really listening to what’s going on?

Because if you’re paying attention to those nonverbal cues, then you can ask appropriate questions afterwards to really see how someone is feeling about something. So I think listening is just super important.

Yeah, that’s actually a really good point. And not all of us are born good listeners. Some people are just natural good listeners. They don’t have to work at it. Some of us have to work really hard at it. I know I’m not a good listener naturally.

I have to work really hard at it. And I didn’t even realize I had heard from friends and family that I wasn’t a good listener, that I didn’t listen, I didn’t do active listening or listen really closely to what people are really saying.

And then I took a Dale Carnegie class some years ago. The company sent us to take a Dale Carnegie class, and this was like on interpersonal relationships and communication.

And the best thing I got from this class was the importance of active listening. And active listening is just like what Gabe you were saying. When we talk to people, we stop trying to be the smartest person in the room.

We try to really listen to what other people are saying. So when that other person is talking, we completely focus on what they’re saying. We don’t think of, oh, how can I have a smart reply?

Because I think for many of us, we sometimes treat it like a competition, like who has a smarter answer. But listening is not like that.

Listening is you really need to focus on what that person is saying, not just what they’re saying, their expressions, their body language, the whole thing.

I think for those that struggle with listening, like truly listening to other people, another way to think about the importance of listening is that you want to understand somebody or something.

If you want to truly understand something, you’re going to go research it, and you’re going to spend some time figuring out the nuances and what makes that thing what it is.