Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

April 27, 2006

Don’t Pay Attention — Are You Curious?

ME Liz Strauss wrote this at 5:07 am

Pay Attention!

Customer Think Logo

Pay attention.

How many times have you heard those two words?

What did they really mean?

To me they meant sit up straight; fold your hands; and be quiet. Look and listen?

I used to think life was all about paying attention. I don’t think that anymore.

Paying attention is passive. I don’t want to wait for things to come to me.

Get Curious

The world moves faster than waiting allows for. If you want to know things, you have to do more than pay attention. Observing only provides half of the story. You have to get out there and find out things. That means you have to be active–get curious. Ask questions. Get interested in everything. Don’t leave an idea uncovered.

Pick a block of time today. Question everything you do. Use questions like these.

  • Do I always do this task this way?
  • Is this a habit or do I have a reason?
  • Is there another way to do it?
  • Do other people do it the same way? Get curious. Don’t just take your own word for it. Check it out .

    • We have this way of fooling ourselves into believing that everyone thinks as we do.

    After you’ve gotten curious about how you do things, check out whether other people do things the same way as you. That’s the whole point, you see.

    I’m Not a Focus Group

    I need curiosity to know my customers, my readers. I’m lucky. I’m weird enough that people have made it clear that I’m not focus group material in any way — even for the simplest choices. Most of the time I have to check whether something I do is something everyone does, not just a “Liz” kind of thing.

    Still, you’re one of a kind too–whether you realize it or not. There are lots of things you do in your own way or in a way that’s different from many of your customers.

    For example, every American seems to think there’s only one way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. . . . Hah! Ask four of them how to do it, you’re likely to get four completely different answers. It’s fun to pose the question over a working lunch just to hear the surprise in the group,when they can’t seem to convince each other that any way, but their own is wrong, just wrong. It’s a good thing their mothers aren’t there.

    Doesn’t that make you a little curious?

    As a customer, I value a brand that’s curious about what I like. It makes me curious about the people behind the brand.

    How might you use curiousity to promote your brand?

    –ME “Liz” Strauss

    Related articles
    Creative Wonder 101 as Promotion and Problem Solving
    There’s No Putting ME in a Box
    Do You Know a Customer When You See One?
    Don’t Hijack My Attention





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    10 Comments to “Don’t Pay Attention — Are You Curious?”

    1. April 27th, 2006 at 5:50 am
      Jack said

      don’t read this comment! :-p
      You know what? some restaurants and disco clubs use this technique to give false feeling that they are famous and in demand by allowing only 20-30% of the crowd and making other to wait keeping them wonder about the high demand of the hotels.

      Jack

    2. April 27th, 2006 at 5:52 am
      ME Strauss said

      Hi Jack,
      I was actually asking you not to pay attention to the post. But i see what you mean. :)

      Yeah it only works at those clubs until you get inside and see that there was nothing worth waiting for.

      smiles,
      Liz

    3. April 27th, 2006 at 6:22 am
      Jack said

      you were asking me not to pay attention to your post and I didn’t pay attention to your post’s title :-) how silly of me.
      Guess I should take some rest to increase my focus

    4. April 27th, 2006 at 6:26 am
      ME Strauss said

      Nah, That’s the pain of BIG TYPE. One publisher I know has a proofreading test on which the most important catch for the applicant is the very top header. The word proofreading is in 64 point type and misspelled.

      Most folks who take the test miss it. That happens for two reasons. We tend not to read headers to begin with and our eyes are not used to reading big type.

      Liz

    5. April 27th, 2006 at 9:17 am
      Martin said

      hey Liz, sometimes I don’t read the post let alone the headline (think: Pretty Woman)
      :-)

    6. April 27th, 2006 at 9:19 am
      ME Strauss said

      Martin,
      I think that we’ve all been guilty of that at some point. It’s because we have so little time, and we love each other so much that we’re dying to comment.

    7. April 27th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
      HART (1-800-HART) said

      “Ask Questions” .. Great advice that works in every situation. I learned the value of that in the early ’80’s from two people.

      Firstly - thanks to my high school computer science teacher (back in the days when Cobol and Fortran were popular) .. I was asked to draw a flowchart on the board to visually show how to do any simple task - and I picked the task “Brushing Your Teeth”. So I started with something like..

      1) wet toothbrush
      2) put toothpaste on toothbrush
      3) brush your teeth in etc motions.

      Well - apparently, the majority of that class just places toothpaste on the toothbrush BEFORE adding water to wet the toothbrush, and some never even added water! What were they thinking? But - if I never asked the class how they brush their teeth, I probably wouldn’t have wasted a week of the class’s time drawing flowsharts .. and getting a Bye on my final assignment.

      Secondly - thanks to my brother. He could sell anything to anybody. While trying to sell new customers , he would ask them questions like .. ‘How many square feet is your own office?’ or .. ‘if you don’t buy things from me today, can I still call on your daughter?’ or .. ‘how many different insurance agents have you had in the past 6 years?’ I can’t actually recall what his stupid questions were back then, but these people - owners, importers, wholesalers .. etc would answer every question. It didn’t matter how inappropriate or stupid I thought they were - I think they just figurer that he genuinely wanted to know the answer - and really, it’s not like he was asking for the secret to the Coca Cola recipe or anything!

      PS.. Do you really blog at 5:07am in the morning?

    8. April 27th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
      ME Strauss said

      I’ll start with the question . . . yeah I’ve been know to blog at 5:07 in the morning. But this one was at 6:07, I didn’t change the time yet on the blog.

      I’ll do that tonight I promise.

      With regard to questions, and your commentary. I’m with you all of the way there. I’ve found that, since I’m dismal at small talk, questions work even better. They make people feel that you’re interested in them and you find out some really great information that you have to talk with them about.

      I brush my teach in the same flow chart that you do.

    9. May 3rd, 2006 at 11:29 pm
      Successful Blog - Helping Clients Get Past Blogaphobia said

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    10. December 11th, 2006 at 8:18 am
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