I have just experienced a suspended, unexpected, spontaneous, decompartmentalized moment, full of empathy and humanity!
Louise Minair is an entrepreneur that I discovered through her very moving pitch, on Club House, in the room Feed that I co-host. She is the co-founder of a brand of nail polish "Le Rouge à Ongles". So far, nothing surprising, except that Louise is deaf and she speaks, and, in a rather distinct and clear manner. After her pitch, already a feat, performed live, she got in touch with me on Linkedin and we decided to talk to each other by phone… but how is that possible, Since she can't hear me!
In your opinion, have we had a deaf dialogue?
… Well no, even quite the opposite! She is starting out with software that allows her to make calls, it is even the first time that she has a conversation, which makes me even happier with the situation. What if she listens more than those who hear?
She could "hear me" with the Roger Voice application, created by Oliver Jeannel, what I said to her is transcribed directly by written message and simultaneously. At first I waited after each sentence, but she hired me to continue.
This young woman thanks me for the support that I bring to her brand but I answer her, it's not your brand that I support, it's you!
Being different requires significant personal development resources and we talk together about having a disability or being atypical, we felt the same, people who are not in the norm have to fight to be accepted for who they are, not who we want them to be.
And we are talking about his project, the pitch, the sale, the training of entrepreneurs, because the sale is a crucial point of the success of the start-up towards its success. I explain and share some expert advice by simplifying my remarks as I always do, because I totally forgot that I am talking to a deaf person, Louise.
Listening is at the center of the relationship, at the center of sales, at the center of management! At the moment, I train salespeople and store managers, confined, on listening to customers and questioning, who understand how this is the center of the sale and that when they reopen, customers will need even more. of their attention. Listening makes 80% of the sale! It also makes 80% connection between two people.
Marketing is essential to get started, sales are essential to stay! Knowing how to pitch and tell your story is important, but knowing how to do it at any time and adapted to any profile is the art of selling for an entrepreneur.
After conquering customers, comes the negotiation which is full of traps in which the entrepreneur can fall to seduce and be referenced by his buyer. After some valuable advice, we continue our discussion, and I ask him if it's me where there is a lot of jargon in the mouth of start-up entrepreneurs? She precisely, she is not one of those people who jargon, who compartmentalize, neither do I, I like to popularize when I train or speak in conference, it is essential because it brings us together. And that people really jargon even when we stop them at each sentence or a Franglais word corresponds to a code, like a computer code that only coders would understand… Well they jargon, they compartmentalize…
I hate the barriers of experts or people who want to mark their territory through the lexical field and when I think back to my intergenerational management training, there is a point of progress, being understood is the basis of communication, language deaf, it is they who hold it! And their non-adaptation is there only to dominate by incomprehension.
The dialogue of the deaf is also the dialogue of oversized egos, each seeking to be right and to master, the lack of listening and empathy, brings judgments, prejudices, frustrations and prevents communication, that based on empathetic listening not on the placement of his pride.
We agree on this point, we must decompartmentalize, we humans, to understand, learn and respect each other.
When you have empathy, you have no age, you are centered on the other and you always learn something from them. I dare to ask Louise her age at the end of our long conversation, she is 22 years old, the age of my eldest son and yet there was no age barrier between us, because we didn't care. totally, nor of any difference because we have to listen to the soul of each one.
Dear Louise, I hope to accompany you because I will lead you to the pinnacle of your project, where you will be queen! You are not deaf in the sense because you have a beautiful active listening ...
Thank you for this beautiful meeting full of listening and emotions!
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