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…
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……
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.
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.
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. 🙂
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…
Everything is sales.
You heard that right. Everything is sales. But doing sales is not (necessarily) selling. It’s helping to buy.
Not being the expert
Not behaving like the expert can take many forms. One of them: trying to avoid pushback, arguments, or resistance in your relationship with clients. It can hurt you more than help. You can be in the order-taking business, if you prefer. And that’s fine. The impact that comes from it, though, will be smaller. You can be in the service business, where your impact will be higher. Or you can be in the transformation business, and help them achieve the potential your customers have. How you want…
Teach the game in verse
Friend-of-the-list and daily emailer Kevin Freidberg sent this message “Teach the game in reverse”. And I read “Teach the game in verse”, which also makes absolute sense, since his writing sounds like that to me (do go check him out). You can think of how you share your thinking in a sense of poetry —verse. Trying (to see) that will push you into some boundaries: space, time, ideas. This will get to be more on point on what you wanna say. And without the need to fill in the things with tons…
Your job is to be an orange
“While the client always wants to level the playing field and compare “apples to apples,” your job is to be an orange. Do everything you can to show why you’re different.” Tim Williams Be the orange when they’re trying to compare apples. Be a square showing your edge, in a world full of circles. When they’re waiting for you to convince them, show them the way they can do best —even if that means it’s not you who does the gig. When they’re waiting for more of the same, bring the surprise. And…
