What Are They Hearing

Strange how one event triggers thoughts and sends you off on a different yet somehow connected tangent. But, that is exactly what happened to me this morning.

At our regular Friday morning Rotary meeting we had the spokesperson from Listen Up Canada. Christine De Luca is an educated and knowledgeable person when it comes to the field of hearing and hearing support devices. These items are commonly known as hearing aids but I believe the naming conventions should be changed. They are support devices. OK, enough with the battle of semantics.

Christine's talk led me to thinking about those of us in business who communicate regularly with existing or potential clients. Clearly from our perspective our message is clear and easily understood. But then let's take another look at that concept.

First, the words we choose may have a totally different meaning for someone else. Just look above to see my ramblings on whether it is a hearing aid or a hearing support device. Now, think of all those fancy adjectives and phrases used in promotion material:
newest; outstanding; life time guarantee; powerful; exciting; thrilling; renewing;
Each of these can mean something different to the receiver.

Each of us has had a number of experiences throughout our lives. Some of us, like the writer have had a lot more years to have these experiences in. Regardless of the number of years of experiences, those experiences have created filters for hearing messages sent to us.

Perhaps, we were told something had a lifetime guarantee and yet when it broke down we found out the guarantee was only for the lifetime of the company and they were out of business now. Perhaps we were told our used car was in excellent condition and after only a few short months we had to invest significant dollars in repairs.

The message here, again I may be making the same mistakes in assuming it is clear to you, is that we need to consider the hearing filters of our audiences. Then we need to work to ensure the message is able to come through the filters clearly and accurately.