Grab More Market Share: How to Wrangle Business Away from Lazy Competitors

What Are the Admired Talents of a Trusted Advisor?

To answer this question with something like “being a good communicator” is too trite and not precise enough for today's demanding customers. Let's be more specific. Is he or she a good storyteller? A witty conversationalist? A good closer? Someone who boasts a photographic memory?

Maybe all of these things, but at the top of the list is this: A communicator knows when to shut up.

Sadly, nobody shuts up anymore. Everyone talks without stopping to listen. I'd like to target the social networking phenomenon for encouraging our overdeveloped sense of self-importance.

Free Agent Nation author Daniel Pink estimates that 30 million to 40 million Americans can now work out of their homes with a broadband connection. While it is, of course, nice to be home, the downside is that all of these people are physically isolated from their former coworkers. Communication is done via e-mail, text messaging, and the occasional phone call. “Talking,” “collaborating,” and “negotiating” aren't skills you get to practice every day. And since these home-based workers are human beings and thus need feedback from other human beings, they join various social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Match.com) in order to stay connected, to be validated, to attract and add other web-hungry isolated individuals—most of whom they never meet.

I have a Facebook page, but I am admittedly not very active. One day last month I decided to stay online for several ...