THEIR Interest, Not Yours

One of my clients called me this week with some exciting news. He was referred by a friend to a potential prospect. What makes this exciting is two fold 1) Referrals are one of the best ways to grow your business 2) This is his first sales call in his new coaching business. Few things in business can be more exciting, exhilarating and scary that putting yourself out there and anticipating your first sale. My advice to him was simple. Ask a lot of questions. Dale Carnegie wrote in "How to Win Friends and Influence People" that one of the six ways to make people like you is to talk in the terms of the other person's interest. How upset would you be if you went to the doctor and as soon as he walked in he told you about his education, qualifications, how thrilled he is to be a doctor; then diagnosed your problem, prescribed some medicine and walked out without ever asking you why you were there, what problems you were experiencing and so on? Why is selling and relationships any different? How can you diagnose a viable solution without becoming very interested in what they need from you? How can anything be called a relationship if you do all the talking? Pretend you're Columbo, Dan Rather or Diane Sawyer and get genuinely interested in people. Everyone you are associated with will appreciate you more because of it. No matter how excited you are about your business and regardless of how many compelling reasons you give and even if they would just have to be stupid not to buy what you're selling…your prospects will always buy for their reasons…not yours! Have a good week! Pierce