What are you doing when you are trying to get others to buy into what you are saying? Are you excited to see if you are successful? Do you carefully prepare the meeting and try to forsee every possible objection? Are you dumping convincing information on your audience that should make it hard for them to argue with you? Do you try to pull others on your side?
If you do any of these things I suggest that you take a step back and pause for a moment. In order to get anywhere with your suggestions/ideas you have to take the focus off yourself. Your objective is to learn how you can do something beneficial for them. How do you know what is beneficial to them if you don't listen? As long as you talk and explain everything from your point of view you are not listening. Take a step back, take a deep breath and listen first! Once you know what they are looking for you will be much more effective.
