If you’re still asking questions, you’re doing it wrong.

The more technologically advanced we get, the more we need to think like a neighborhood.

As a company (or blogger, or service provider, or freelancer), you live, eat, and breathe right alongside your customers and end users. They’re not faceless numbers who exist halfway around the globe, they’re your neighbors. This is important for a number of reasons, but I want to focus on interactions for the time being.

What kind of neighbor are you?

Let’s imagine your virtual neighborhood. Which house is yours? Do others feel welcome to join you on the porch for a chat or do you hang out behind a fence? Do you know what’s going on with your neighbors and vice versa, or is the only evidence that you live here consist of a car that periodically comes and goes from behind a garage door or the trash cans that miraculously appear at the curb on Tuesdays? This is one part of branding that frequently gets overlooked, but is intricately associated with your success: your neighbors should probably know you better than they do, and you should definitely know them better.

Why is this important?

Almost every neighborhood has someone who doesn’t want to be bothered unless they need something or want to know what’s going on. They show up, try to get chummy as quickly as possible, then move in for the ask. Or maybe we never really see them at all, but we find a flier in our mailbox on a fairly regular basis telling us we should do something for/with them. Do we like this person? When they ask us about something, do we give them short answers or long ones? Are they able to anticipate changes and the needs of their neighbors, or are they constantly reacting to what’s happening around them (when they notice)? If you’re not engaging with your neighbors — having conversations with your customers, encouraging interaction even when you haven’t directly asked for it or can’t control its content — you are this neighbor. Yes, you’ll get some responses when you come out from behind your fence and ask some pointed questions, but you won’t experience the forward-looking benefit of rich, sincere feedback. You will always operate reactively and you will never understand why your other neighbor — the one who always seems to be in their front yard or helping someone with a mundane task — is more liked and more progressive than you are.

Conversations vs. Questions

If you’re still asking questions, you’re doing it wrong. Are questions off limits? No, absolutely not. But what’s true for interpersonal communication is true for business communication as well: the more you listen, the more you get out of a conversation. If you’re listening, interacting, present, and available, you won’t have so many questions to begin with, and those you’re having conversations with are much more willing to give you the long answer when you need it — sometimes, before you even know you have a question.

So get involved with your virtual neighborhood-watch and BBQs.

Your future depends on it, and you might even enjoy it.

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