Get rid of your but
Tuesday, August 10th, 2010Yes, that’s the title of this week’s newsletter: Get rid of your but
Curious? Check it out. (And then come back here and leave a comment)
Everything your customer says is true
Friday, August 6th, 2010It’s hard to be in business and not find yourself frequently frustrated by things that customers say. Customers misunderstand your product after speaking with you for ten minutes about it. They reap great benefits from your product, but then report that it is “ok.” You go out of your way to help customers, and in the next conversation they say everything but “thanks.”
Our natural inclination is to focus on how our customer is “wrong” or “doesn’t get it.” Well, yes, your customer is often wrong, and often doesn’t get it. But, as far as your customer is concerned, everything she says is true.
The only response you can have when your customer says something “wrong” is to accept that, although it may be wrong, it is true. It is tempting to fight you customer’s truth, denying it, arguing against it, resisting it, but that won’t get you anywhere.
If you focus on denying and resisting your customer’s truth, you won’t be able to see a clear way out of this truth to a better truth. Let’s imagine that a customer says that she thinks a competitor’s product is as good as yours, but you know, with 100% certainty, that your product will work better for her than the competitor’s. Should you focus on the fact that she is wrong, or focus on understanding her version of the truth? Which will make it easier for you to deal with the situation? Which will make it easier for her to deal with you?
When your customer says something you don’t like, recognize the new reality. Recognize your customer’s truth. Then, you will be in a much better position to help your customer shift from her current idea of what is true to a different truth.
Tree Pose in a Sales Call
Friday, July 9th, 2010Yoga practice is filled with balance poses. As you first learn these poses your concentration is focused 100% on the physical requirements of balancing. You find yourself moving your arms around and tensing your muscles, trying to keep only 50% of your weight on each side of the mid-line.
Then, you eventually learn to see balance in a new way. The physical requirements of balancing never go away, but you begin to see that mindfulness is the most important, overriding key to your balance. You begin to notice that you wobble and fall not because your leg lost its strength, but because your mind did. Your balance feels different every time you practice – some days you’re not very “balancy,” to quote one of my teachers – but you begin to realize that your readiness to be focused and present on a given day are what most influence your balance.
Tree pose (know as “vrksasana” in Sanskrit) is one of the most common balancing poses in yoga. You stand on one leg, driving it down to the ground while your head reaches to the sky. The heel of your raised leg pushes into your standing thigh which, in turn, pushes back on your heel. Your eyes focus on one point in front of you. You breathe. And your ability to hold this pose with grace and calm depends on how well you stay present in all of this. Almost every time I start to fall out of a simple balancing posture like tree pose, I realize that my mind has wandered. But I have also learned that I can usually regain my balance once if I am able to regain my mindfulness.
A sales conversation is like tree pose. There are many ways you can fall, and you are often challenged to stay in balance. You are constantly alert to new information from your customer and the environment around you, requiring constant micro-adjustments. Distractions can enter your mind, at any time and from any place, challenging your focus. But at any point in a sales conversation, no matter what happens, you can always improve your balance with mindfulness. The best way to hold your balance a sales conversation successfully is stay focused and present, aware of everything, not distracted by anything.
So, in your next sales conversation, be in tree pose. Stay present, and you will not only keep your conversational balance, you will have a more productive relationship-building encounter with your customer.
The apertif pitch
Friday, July 2nd, 2010I don’t like the concept of the elevator pitch, that 30-second monologue that is designed to summarize your story, but will have the actual effect of obscuring your story. (See this post, Tear Up Your Elevator Pitch and/or page 77 in my book We)
I’ve had people in television production and venture capital say this to me: “But sometimes I need an elevator pitch. The (television network/investor) doesn’t want to give us much time, so they require that we give them a 30-second pitch.”
That’s true. It’s too bad, but it’s true. So let’s explore how to deal with the mandated pitch.
Realize that the goal of the mandated 30-second pitch is not to sell your television programing idea or raise $25 million in investment capital. Yes, it would be wonderful if you achieved that outcome, but it is very unlikely. The only goal of the mandated 30 second pitch is to interest your customer in having a deep, relationship-building conversation with you.
Look at the mandated 30-second pitch as an apertif. An apertif is an alcoholic drink that is served before a meal to stimulate appetite. (Digestifs, in contrast, are served after meals to aid digestion.) The only thing you want from the mandated 30-second pitch is to whet the appetite of the person you are trying to sell. The apertif doesn’t make the meal, but it makes a great meal possible.
So, like a skilled dinner host, recognize the limitations of the apertif you serve. See it for what it is: a gateway to something much more memorable. Don’t depend on a mandated elevator pitch to make your sale.
Attention: Do your customers give it to you?
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010What resource is the hardest for your company (or you) to hold on to?
What resources is there one moment and – poof! – gone the next?
Which of your resources do your customers have ultimate control over?
When it comes to building your business, customer attention is as finite a resource as people, time and money.
Please read (and comment) on today’s newsletter, Attention: Do your customers give it to you?
Work with what you are given
Tuesday, May 4th, 2010What do you do if a customer meeting doesn’t go as planned? Resist? Deny the situation? Stick to you original plan, no matter what happens?
Or, should you Ditch the Pitch and make the most of the new situation?
Today’s newsletter, Work with what you are given, takes a lesson from stage improvisation and helps us learn how to “go with the flow” and improvise a powerful customer encounter, even if the encounter isn’t what you thought it would be.
Do you have any examples of “war stories” of customer meetings that didn’t go the way you expected them to go?
Conversing? Pay attention!
Sunday, May 2nd, 2010Some people are really bad at conversation. Some are masters. Why?
I believe it is mostly a matter of self-awareness.
We all know people who are pathological monologuers . They talk. And then they continue talking. And then they talk some more. Oh … and then, just to make sure you understand what they said, they tell you the same thing all over again.
Why do people do this? Have they made a conscious choice, selecting a life of monologue over a life of dialogue? No, I don’t think so. I think they are just not self-aware. If they were to see a movie of themselves monologuing, most would be petrified.
Sure, there are some who just love to hear themselves talk. (They are really bad at persuading others to do anything.) But, for the rest of us, it’s really just a matter of paying attention. (Keep reading the Conversationemter in your mind, at all times.)
Hello, would you be my customer?
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010When you meet a potential customer in a social situation, you can’t exactly ask for the sale over hors d’oevres. So what can you do?
Steve’s newsletter, Meeting a Potential Customer for the First Time, identifies the goal of this chance meeting and gives you the steps for reaching that goal.
Even if you don’t feel like a “salesperson,” Steve’s newsletter will guide you towards creating sales conversations that are natural, human and comfortable. As an additional benefit, you and your potential customers will enjoy your conversations more.
Read the newsletter here: Meeting a Potential Customer for the First Time.
It’s not about you
Thursday, April 15th, 2010Who does your customer care more about, you or herself?
Don’t ever forget this, for a minute. Your customer doesn’t really care about you. Your customer cares about herself. If you want her to be interested in you, you MUST ensure that the conversation is about her, not about you.
Ditch the pitch. Don’t talk about yourself. (Unless you want your customer’s mind to wander.)
Improvise your success!
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010Last Thursday, I was watching Whose Line Is It Anyway?, as Wayne Brady invented a song, on the spot, like no one else can. Drew Carey would throw out a musical style, the audience would yell out topics, and Wayne would instantly compose and sing a song, with perfect rhymes, double entendres, wit and humor.
That got me thinking a lot about improvisation, which has been a big part of my life since I started playing guitar at age 12. Improvisation became a theme a few more times throughout the weekend, inspiring this week’s newsletter, Improvise your success.
Improvise your success connects, chimpanzees, bonobos, The Second City, jazz and my second book together to create this message: Improvise!
There is a place in business for policy and programming, and there are many places for improvising. So what do you think? Is improv important to your business success?
Newsletter link: Improvise your success
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