Steve Yastrow

Tree Pose in a Sales Call

Yoga 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.

Posted in Customer Encounters, Ditch the Pitch | 2 Comments »

The apertif pitch

I 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.

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Work with what you are given

What 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?

Posted in Customer Encounters | 1 Comment »

It’s not about you

Who 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.)

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So you don’t want to be a “vendor?”

Today’s newsletter, Don’t be a “vendor,” focuses on what it takes to be considered a “partner” by your customers, instead of being kept down in the lowly realm of vendor status.

I’ve heard 727,435 senior executives bemoan the vendor/partner challenge in the years I’ve been teaching people about “We” relationships, so I thought this would be a worthwhile topic for us to focus on.  My theme: If you don’t want to be considered a vendor, be sure you’re not acting like a vending machine.

Posted in We relationships | 5 Comments »

The Way We Connect

Here’s a link to my last newsletter, The Way We Connect.

In a world where products and services are, in the minds of customers, largely interchangeable, the character of your interactions with customers is one of the most important ingredients of effective marketing communication.  So, how well do companies interact with you?  How does your company compare?

Posted in Marketing, We relationships | No Comments »

Improvise your success!

Last 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

Posted in Conversation, Creativity, We relationships | 7 Comments »

Stop telling stories

Sales and marketing are not about telling stories. Sales and marketing are about helping your customer create a story, in his mind, in which you figure as a prominent, clear, vibrant character. If your customer tells himself a meaningful, motivating story that includes you, he will be much more likely to get more involved with you, and take actions that improve your business results.

Stop telling stories about yourself.  Instead, figure out how to make yourself part of your customer’s story.

Posted in Customer Encounters, Marketing | 1 Comment »

Be patient – You are a christmas tree farmer

Yesterday, I ran into a 24-year old young man who is the son of close family friends. I’ve known “Jake” since he was a little kid, so I’ve seen for years that he has a magnetic, charismatic personality, and has always been able to attract friends.

About a year ago Jake started working for a local firm selling life insurance and investments – a very difficult career for anyone to start at a young age, with its long sales cycles and the need to get people to trust you with their money.  He and I work out at the same club, so I see him on a regular basis and have a chance to hear updates on his progress. Some days I’d see him, elated, after a promising meeting with a prospect.  Sometimes he was discouraged he wasn’t closing more sales yet.

My comments to him:  You have started a career path where long-term relationships create riches.  If you have enough great meetings with prospects now, you will start to build relationships with some of them.  When you are 40, some of the relationships you start this month may be paying your mortgage.  Meetings you have next month will start relationships that will help send your kids to college.  If anybody can make it in this business, you can. The only question: Can you wait?

In most businesses, customer relationships are your most valuable asset. Jake has chosen a business where this is especially true, with great rewards for those who can create and nurture long-term relationships.  But we’re all like Jake to an extent: Can we be patient and invest now, one relationship-building encounter at a time, in building those relationships that will help us prosper in the future?

Certainly, Jake could use his exceptional relationship-building skills for more short-term financial gains.  He could be a waiter in a fine-dining restaurant, creating 45-minute relationships that, I’m sure, would earn him the largest tips of all the servers.  But, beyond the few repeat customers who ask for him, these relationships wouldn’t create lasting value for Jake.  If his insurance job is like that of a christmas tree farmer, being a waiter would be more like that of a migrant worker, earning wages for today but starting over tomorrow.

I’m rooting for Jake, and for his firm. If he and they can be patient, all will benefit, including Jake’s future clients, since We relationships create strong benefits for both  buyers and sellers.

It’s easy to look at Jake’s situation and think, “I’m glad that’s not me. I could never sell insurance.” And yes, specifically, I could never sell insurance. I’d go nuts.  But Jake’s job really isn’t selling insurance. It’s building relationships that differentiate him from other providers in the minds of his clients.  And when we recognize that we again remind ourselves that Jake’s challenge is our challenge: Do we want to be the migrant worker or the christmas tree farmer?  Do we want to build our business around short-term transactions that produce their yields now, or do we want to invest in a rich, bountiful future harvest?

Posted in We relationships | 1 Comment »

Make this the Week of Encounter

In every customer interaction, there are only three things that can happen:

1. Your relationship gets better
2. Your relationship stays the same
3. Your relationship gets worse

Scenario #1 is an “encounter.”  Scenarios #2 & #3 are “transactions.”

As you interact with people this week, in the course of doing your work, notice this at the end of each interaction: Is my relationship with this person better now than it was at the start of the interaction? Have we created a relationship-building encounter?

Here are a few places you can learn more about the differences between encounters and transactions:

• Chapter 2 in my book, We: The Ideal Customer Relationship.
• My free ebook, Encounters, which can be downloaded on the right side of this page.
• This newsletter, The Encounter Habit.
• And numerous blog posts on this site.

But, for this week, focus on encounter awareness.  Notice whether you are creating encounters or transactions.

Then, work on creating more encounters. Even if you are a master of business relationship-building, you have room for improvement. Everyone does.  Every customer interaction is not only an opportunity to build a relationship, it is an opportunity to practice the skill of encounter, one of the most valuable business skills you can have.

Posted in Customer Encounters | 4 Comments »