I recently had a student of mine ring me up feeling pretty chuffed (with good reason). A member at their gym had just told them that their new programme was the best programme they had ever been given. My student is still fairly new to programming so this was obviously extremely good for their confidence.

Now you might be thinking that my student had written a complicated, cutting edge programme… you would be wrong! While this programme was well founded in science, what was it that made this programme so special? In my students words “all I did was listen to my client”.

It sounds easy but I know it took me a long time to learn this valuable lesson. After all I was the expert that had a sports science degree. I should know what is best for my client! 

Now to a certain extent this is true. I might have a much better understanding of components of fitness and how to train them. What I don’t understand anywhere near as well as my client…. is my client. By learning to listen (and I mean really listen) I was able to take the science I had learnt and apply it much more appropriately to a programme my client actually looked forward to rather than dreading.

Have you ever been to see a hairdresser that spent the 90 minutes you were there talking about their weekend, pretended to listen to what you wanted but then went ahead and did what they saw fit with your hair?

Compare that with the hairdresser that asked about your lifestyle: how much time you like to spend styling your hair, how good you are at it, what has worked for you in the past and then made a suggestion that took all relevant factors into account.

Which would you be happy to pay for? Who would you go back to? Have a go. Listen to your client and see how much they appreciate it. 

To learn how to listen have a look at an article on reflective listening by following the link below.