Price fear
Working on proposals, quotations and offers gets into some sort of comfort zone. A zone where you don’t need to push for hearing a No, or where even ghosting is preferable to being rejected. Or trying to avoid saying a high price, so that you don’t miss the opportunity. Or flinching at the very last minute —and lowball the offer. Or decide to start with a low price, because that way you can “upsell the next time”. Behind all that, there’s fear. And fear is a natural, instinctive survival…
Saying it out loud
Your price. At it’s top. No discounts. No words after it. Have you tried doing that? Being in a sales conversation, get to the price part and just say it —as natural as saying “It rains outside”. Silence. And a smile. Or do you jump to fill it in, justify why it’s like this and what it involves? (Been there, done that.) A question for you: What’s the thing that you do (your most expensive one) and how much is it? I’m curious to know. 🙂
Are you prepped to be wrong?
Here’s an excerpt of Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on creativity The main point on it is about being prepared to get things wrong. Yet, something that keeps coming back to mind is how you can approach things in your business. It can go from trying to avoid mistakes and playing it safe —or be prepared to get it wrong, so you can have a go at new approaches you come up with. On which side of the spectrum would you rather be? You can see the full presentation here.
A service business?
Some argue that you’re in the service business. And that might be right. It makes sense. But I’d go a bit further. Quoting Ron Baker, “you’re in the transformation business”. You help your customers transform by servicing them (diff from serving them). 🙂 The approach you’ll take on decisions, advice, and goals reflects that.
Sense of urgency
In hospitality (and business) people talk of having a “sense of urgency” to do things at the right time, in the right way, and always taking care of details. But in reality it’s not urgency, it’s efficiency and efficacy, I’d say. The thing here is that they get to confuse this sense of urgency with busy-ness. To be always doing something. Doing nothing is not possible, because that means wasted time —or just laziness. So you have everyone jumping from one thing to the other, keeping busy……
Stop selling
Stop pitching and trying to convince people. Show up with your prospects to see if there’s a fit, with your willingness to help them see something they don’t see yet. To be there for them and show them the way —with you, or with someone else who fits better. Ask questions and push. Help them see you’re on the same side, not against them. Say what you think. Don’t hold back, but no need to be an ass either. Be kind, but straightforward. Choose your words. You’re not there to sell. You’re there…
Repeating yourself
To be a “thought leader”, they say you need to be authentic, original and come up with new, innovative, disruptive ideas that no one has ever said before. That you can’t repeat yourself. Buillshit. It’s fine to repeat yourself. In fact, do that. Like in music, add some new riffs, new instruments, new versions, new interpretations. Say the same thing, in as many ways as you can. You’ll find new angles, new holes to fill, new spaces to leave, new ways to see. Just like a song and its own…
Soft skills
What’s that even supposed to mean: soft skills? Next-level thought leadershit? As you can feel, I have an itch with the term “soft skills”. What’s “soft” about… leadership? communication? empathy? honesty? trust? Is it soft because you can’t measure it? Just as you can’t measure love, right? So love is soft. Makes you soft. And, as soft, it can be disposable. Or is it?
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Sometimes you need time to regroup. Do it with intention. That beats busy-ness. Always.
Real questions
“There are enough real questions and issues to solve – let’s not solve problems that don’t exist [like stop calling soft skills, something else].” That was a reply to Soft Skills from 2 days ago. Real questions will NEVER get all the time and dedication and focus to be solved as A real question. They’re not in siloes. Everything is connected and interdependent. Problems are not mutually exclusive: If you fix A, you can’t fix B. Because something’s been in use for a long time (hello, status…
