I am seeing that service providers get some funny ideas about the people they serve. In many industries, I have observed that continuing exposure creates a callous attitude, or familiarity breeds contempt.
Yesterday I received an email from a sales trainer I have never met, saying my problem was fear and then gave me a couple of options of what I was afraid of. While I am grateful for the insight, I haven’t figured out if it matters. I can’t recall meeting people with their elevator speech celebrating “fear.”
Well, maybe one. A retired NAVY pilot was making the useful distinction that if what was coming at you couldn’t blow you out of the sky, it probably wasn’t very scary.
In the evening, I met a new consultant. I was interested, so I asked what his practice area was? “I travel across the country and tell people to get their head out of their ass.” Fair enough. However, I don’t often see the classic rectal-cranial inversion in nature. Maybe it’s a niche market.
Seth Godin made a great point a few months ago that sales “prospects” don’t identify themselves as “prospects.”
That goes along with the fact that no one has ever come up to me and identified themselves at a “high net worth individual.” I do see a lot of people who say they are looking for them, however.
Seth wrote that the term “prospect” was made up by the marketers, and that perhaps a term the prospects would better identify with would be “citizens.”
How would a more positive model of the people you serve improve your business?
Monday, September 20th, 6:30 pm to 8:30, we are presenting Four Steps To Sure-Fire Sales Success at a meeting of Incite International, which will be held at Intelligent Office, Alexandria. Details and reservations at http://bit.ly/Sure-Fire
The order of operations
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If you put the jelly on before the peanut butter, the sandwich will fail.
And if you try to spread the peanut butter on the plate and then add the
bread, i...
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