We seemed embarrassed to admit it, or we are trained not to say this, but selling isn’t selling really about Self Interest?

Despite all the things we say about being customer focused, what we really want is for the customer to buy what we are selling.  We want to win, we want to beat the competition, we want to achieve our goals, beat our quotas and earn our commissions.  We want to be successful. 

It’s really all about Self Interest…..but what’s wrong with that?

Isn’t business, and life, really about Self Interest?  We choose our relationships based on how they make us feel.  We work in companies based on what we get out of it, not only pay, but they do things we are interested in, they represent what we like.

Our customers are the same way.  They work in their own Self Interests.  They want to achieve their goals, they want to get a promotion, they want want to be successful.

It is human nature to be Self Interested.

Where we get confused, when things start getting complicated or going wrong is when we work with people where our Self Interests Aren’t Aligned.

We are unhappy in our jobs when the expectations of management and the strategies of the company are not aligned with our Self Interests.

Self Interest in sales is very challenging.  If, in serving our Self Interest, we are pushing something on the customer that doesn’t serve their Self Interests, the customers resent it.  They feel pressured, they may feel manipulated.  Conflict arises when Self Interests are not aligned.

But what if we aligned our Self Interests with those of the customer?  What if by focusing on the Self Interest of the customer, we could also satisfy our own Self Interest?  When what we are trying to achieve–sell our solution—aligns with what the customer is trying to achieve—solve a problem, we have no conflicts.  We work in tandem with the customer, each of us satisfying our own Self Interests.

We aren’t interested in nice meetings and conversations (unless that’s in our Self Interest).  We aren’t interested in working with customers who cannot help us satisfy our Self Interest.  We aren’t interested in customers who don’t have problems we can solve.  We want to disqualify all opportunities that don’t serve our Self Interest.  There’s nothing wrong with that–afterall customers feel the same way, they don’t want to waste time with people who don’t satisfy their (the customer’s) Self Interest.  We aren’t going to hurt their feelings, we’re just being human.

There’s another thing about Self Interest–it’s about people, what each of us wants, what each of our customers want.  Our companies and those of our customers really represent the aggregated Self Interests, goals, and dreams of all the employees, stakeholders, and shareholders–but there is really no Self Interest in companies.  Sometimes in selling we forget about this.  We focus on the customer’s–the company’s—goals, objectives, and problems.  We forget about the people who are doing the buying.  We don’t understand each of them, their Self Interests.  If we don’t understand their Self Interests (otherwise known as What’s In It For Them), we may have difficulty in aligning our Self Interests.

There’s nothing wrong with Self Interest–as long as our Self Interests are aligned with those with whom we work and with those of our customers.

I few days ago, I started a discussion with “What Are The 3 Characteristics That Set Great Sales People Apart?”  followed by “How Important Are ‘Techniques’ To Sales?”  I hadn’t meant to turn this into a series (or saga), but the discussion has been very interesting.  For me, it has been a bit of a journey of discovery.  I’ve always had an aversion to what I call “techniques”  — those 68 closing techniques, the persuasion technique and so forth. 

At the same time, there are techniques or tools that I have found very helpful, questioning approaches, storytelling as a means of illustrating complex points, using humor to offset my natural clumsiness, and so forth.   Somehow, these techniques have become “a part of me.”  They are natural, I never have to think about them, they seem to flow with what I am trying to achieve in engaging the customer.

Perhaps my aversion to what I view as “the techniques” is that I’ve never been very good at using most of them.  I get too caught up in listening to the customer and having a conversation to remember that I should be “mirroring” them or that I should be using certain neuro linguistic or psychological wording  (Make sure you say their name in every sentence …. or whatever that one is).  Somehow I’m too busy working with the customer defining the next steps and moving forward to remember to ask if they like German Shepherds or Saint Bernards (I think the puppy dog close goes something like that).

I wonder if being yourself counts as a technique?  Somehow, I have found my customers and prospects seem to like having a conversation, they tend to appreciate directness.  I have managed to stop saying “that’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard, “  but I chalk that up to politeness.  I tend to handle that with, “Have you ever considered looking at it differently?”  Maybe that’s a technique.

I think of the experiences I’ve had with people selling me something.  I know they are trying to sell me something, I don’t resent it, after all I participating in the discussion.  But the sales calls I appreciate the most are those great directed and focuses conversations.  No pretense, no techniques (I know most of them well enough that I watch for them), just a discussion focused on what I am trying to achieve and how they can help me.

I sit in meetings in large corporations–I see selling going on in every meeting.  People trying to persuade others about an idea or an approach.  People discussing different things, having honest disagreements or differences but working to resolve them.  People aligned to achieving common goals.

Sometimes I think we would be much more effective as sales professionals if we started simplifying things, if we had the courage to be ourselves, if we focused on natural conversations with our customers.  Be sure, these aren’t random or wandering conversations.  Remember, one of the characteristics that I think distinguishes top sales performers is “goal directed curiosity and a problem solving orientation.”  I don’t have a lot of patience (or the requisite social graces) for random conversations.  I’m interested in having great conversations with people who have problems or goals that I can do something about.  I’m interested in learning what they want to achieve and demonstrating how I can help them achieve their goals better than anyone else.  I tend to be very focused and direct about this and they know it.  Somehow, virtually everyone seems to appreciate it—they like getting to the issues without the typical “dancing” we often do.

Let me crawl further out on the limb I’m on.

Sometimes I think we use ” the techniques” for surrogates for being ourselves and being truly engaged in having a conversations with our customers.  When we aren’t curious about the customer and what they are trying to achieve, when we aren’t trying to solve problems, when we really don’t care about them other than convincing them to buy our products, it’s hard to be ourselvesa and be engaged.  Perhaps this is when we use techniques.  Perhaps this is a sweeping generalization and very inaccurate, but it seems those people (I hesitate to call them sales professionals) who use “the-techniques” in the most manipulative ways are those who are more focused on themselves and selling their product and less focused on me and what I need.

Techniques can be important and useful, but I think they have greatest impact when they allow the sales person to be her/himself and enable them to connect more naturally in real conversatons with the customer.

Am I crazy?

A few years ago, I was talking to a sales manager.  He was expressing some frustration, “I’m doing my job of selling, my customers need to start doing a better job of buying!”  When you think about it, there’s actually a lot of truth to that statement — at least the “doing a better job of buying” part.

Our customers do a bad job of buying because they don’t know how to buy.  With the exception of purchasing professionals, it’s not our customers jobs to buy, they focus on doing their jobs whether it is building products, running an operation, providing IT support, whatever their function is.  They don’t know how to organize their buying effort, they don’t know how to define what they are trying to do, they don’t know how they should look at and evaluate alternatives.  Buying is something is a disruption to their normal work flow–they are already busy, often just trying to survive, now they have this new task — it takes time away from doing their normal job.  They probably recognize they need to change–they need to find a new solution, but they don’t know how to organize themselves to make a decision.  They also have to go through all that awkward stuff of managing a team, each with a different agenda, each with different views on what is needed, each with a different priority.  just coordinating the buying group, requires a lot of skill and time.

Customers worry about making a bad decision.  They are accountable to their management to do the right thing for the company.  They are held accountable for investing company funds well–they need to demonstrate their purchase creates a return for the company.  If they make a mistake, their management will be all over them, they may even lose their jobs.

Customers don’t buy very often.  In complex B2B solutions, they may purchase these once in their careers.  Think of it, a new piece of capital equipment–something that has a life of more than 5 years, a major new software system, outsourcing services, whatever.  Their lack of experience makes them apprehensive–both because of the “long life” of whatever they are buying, but they just haven’t looked at thse solutions very often.  They don’t know what’s out there, what’s good, what they should avoid.  Even if they buy more frequently, things are changing so quickly, it’s difficult for them to keep up.  Think of something that has become commoditized like PC’s.  The product life cycle of a PC is probably around 3-6 months.  So if I looked at PC’s last year, there have been 2-4 generations of new PC’s since then.  Everything that I knew about buying them a year ago has changed.

Procurement professionals help.  Their job is buying, they keep up with the products they are responsible for.  But it’s still difficult for them.  They aren’t making purchasing decisions on their own.  They are acting on behalf of people within the organization.  They have to make sure they understand and are satisfying the needs of their customers.  They face the challenge of helping manage the process, expectations and align the different agendas and priorities of their customers.

Finally, buying is about change—none of us like change, it’s always so difficult, it’s often easier just to keep doing the same old thing.

It’s no wonder that customers do a bad job of buying—after all their jobs aren’t about buying.  So they need help–and that’s where great sales professionals differentiate themselves.

See the peddlers don’t recognize that customers don’t know how to buy.  They blindly assume the customer is expert at this, they never ask questions to determine if they do know how to buy.  All they do is pitch their products hoping to dazzle the customer with Features Advantages Benefits, ghee whiz Technology, and large doses of Charm and Personality.  Peddlers are pitching their products but not solving their customers’ problems–one of which is “How Do I Buy?”

Great sales professionals recognize their job is to help their customers solve their problems–both operating their businesses more effectively and efficiently and addressing new opportunities.  Great sellers also recognize that part of solving customers’ problems is helping them understand how to buy–they work with the customer in facilitating their buying process.  They realize, that by helping their buyers buy, they are creating great value for their customers.

Are you helping your customers do a better job of buying?

(As a side note, my friend Sharon Drew Morgen worries about Buying Facilitation (TM) a lot.  I highly recommend looking at her site, and devouring her books and matierials.)

This past week, in New York, I had the pleasure of having breakfast with Mack Hanan.  Mack is the author of Consultative Selling, originally published in 1970.  Whenever I’m in New York, Mack and I get together to talk about the state of the profession.  I started my sales career in the late 70′s.  In that time, so much has changed, yet so much has stayed the same.

• Customers were busy then–they are still very busy.  Though, in reality, I do think they are busier today than in the late 70′s.  Continued cutback’s, the “leaning” of organizations, fewer resources–in hindsight, things are much busier now.  But it sure felt busy then.
• Customers suffered from information overload then–they suffer from information overload now.  Walking into offices in the late 70′s, one would see piles of papers, unread reports piling up, urgent items piled into in-boxes.  Today we see the same, except it’s all electronic.  Again, in hindsight, the volume of information is much higher–yet the availability of sophisticated tools is much more much higher than before.  Despite information overload, both then and now, finding quality information and insight was and is difficult.
• We were constantly challenged by new competition.  For me, selling for IBM in the late 70′s, upstarts like Digital Equipment (RIP), Wang (RIP), Oracle, Amdahl (RIP), and others were coming up every year.  Today, the names have changed, but there is always new competition.
• People didn’t want to see sales people then, people don’t want to see sales people now……

I could go on.  It seems the more things have changed, the more they are the same.  We have new tools–enabling us to do good and unproductive things at the speed of light.   These tools, all cynicism aside, do offer great potential in helping sales people be more productive, to engage customers in new and compelling ways.  But just as any tool, to use them effectively, we have to have mastered the fundamentals.  Without this, the tools allow us to aggravate our prospects and customers at the speed of light.

Mack and I spoke about the state of selling.  When he wrote “Consultative Selling, ” Mack argued for a change in focus—stop pitching products, stop competing on prices, start looking at what your customer needs.  Focus on understanding their business, focus on how you can help them identify new opportunities, focus on how you can help them make or save money.  At the same time, Neil Rackham, Robert Miller, Stephen Heiman, and others were talking about similar consultative, solutions, and customer focused approaches to selling.

Today, we’re still talking about the same thing–I write, hundreds of others write about being customer focused, about focusing on how our customers’ buy, looking at how we create value, looking at how we might be provocative.  We’re saying the same thing–we have 3 decades more evidence about the need to do this—and three decades more of talking about the same thing, yet making little progress in executing consultative approaches to selling.

I’ve seen some progress, many organizations are more customer focused in their sales approaches, but still too many sales people have such a long way to go.  The profession is progressing, but it seems the level of distrust and impatience our buyers have with sales people is outpacing this progress.

• So rather than getting on my soapbox and pontificating, I’m anxious to get your views. 
• What’s changed about selling (other than the tools), what’s stayed the same?
• What progress has been made in being more consultative, customer and solutions focused?  Why isn’t it more pervasive?  What keeps us from moving forward?
• What progress have we made in the last 5-10-20-30 years?  What’s the outlook for the future?
• What will be be talking/writing about in 5 years?  Will it be more of the same or will the conversation change?

I’m really interested in your views!

My friend, Ardath Albee, and I were commiserating the other day.  We see so many misguided approaches, whether they are sales people, marketers, individuals.  They know the theory–yes, they’re supposed to be customer focused.  They know they are supposed to talk about customer needs, problems, goals.  They know they should focus on solving customer problems by proposing great solutions.  But, to often it’s not like that.  Just after the words, “how can I help you,” or “what are your needs,”  leave their mouths — before we have a chance to respond — they go on and say, “but let me tell you about our products,”  or “let me tell you about me,”  or “can you help me?”  The focus shifts immediately back to them and what they want.

Hmmm….. is this what we mean by customer focus?  I thought the way it’s supposed to work is that after we ask the question, “what are your problems/needs,” or “how can I help you,” we were supposed to pause and give the customer a chance to talk.  I thought we were supposed to listen, probe, understand.

Too often, our real motives are so transparent.  We really want to talk about ourselves, we want to pitch our products.  We’re just going through the motions of asking the questions or expressing our concern because that’s what we’re supposed to do.  Or we listen long enough until we hear the key word, which causes us to interrupt and leap into our pitch, or as I’ve said in other posts, we jump to solutions.

We say it all the time, effective sales and marketing is all about the customer!  The customer has to be the center of our focus.  Understanding what the customer needs and wants to achieve is our priority.  Only after we have questioned, probed, challenged, explored alternative ideas can we start talking about what we can do for them.  If we do this, we maximize our engagement and alignment with the customer and maximize our likelihood of earning their business.

Don’t get me wrong, we want to be talking to customers that have problems we can solve, customers that intend to do something, and who want to consider us as a solution provider.  That’s why vicious disqualification of anything that doesn’t fit is critical.  But as we do this and move forward, it’s all about the customer, not us.

Sales people are trained to be problem solvers — we ask questions, probe — once we find a problem we attack like a pit bull and don’t let go until we’ve wrestled the problem to the ground and gotten the order.

So what’s the problem with that?  Too often we leap to solutions before we understand what the “real problem” is.  It’s a real problem, I wrote about it in a post almost a year ago: “The Evolving Role Of The Sales Person–The Sales Person As Diagnostician”  It addresses the issue of sales people leaping to solutions and not solving the right problem.  Customers get frustrated with this approach, they complain, “they aren’t listening, they don’t understand my real issues.”

There’s another aspect of this problem — often, our customers leap to solutions.  Like sales people, business people are trained problem solvers–that’s what we learn in the university, and every aspect of our jobs reinforce that.  Customer are often certain they know their problems and tell the sales person, “this is what I need.”  And we tend to accept that and sell to that need.  The problem is they aren’t solving the right problem.

A friend of mine, Steve Bowles, had a great example of this.  He was meeting with the CEO of a small company, and the CEO said, “This is the issue I’m having with the sales organization and this is what I need you to do…”  And as CEO’s are prone to do, he said it with great authority and certainty.  Steve could have done what the CEO asked and gotten the order.  Instead, Steve did something else, he asked the question, “What do you think is causing this issue to happen with the sales organization?”  Steve resisted the temptation to take the leap with his customer, get the order, and provide the right solution to the wrong problem.  Instead, Steve decided to probe.  He wanted to understand if the CEO was describing the real problem or if there was an underlying issue.  He got to the underlying issues — it wasn’t pleasant, in fact to a large degree the CEO was creating the problem himself.  Steve politely pointed that out and suggested a different solution.  Oh by the way, Steve got the order.

Mediocre sales people let the customer dictate the solution, only responding the the needs the customer outlines and the solution they want.  That’s often why it’s difficult to differentiate.  The customer has determined the solution and everyone is fundamentally providing the same thing.

Great sales professionals–those that create real value for their customers and stand out are those that find and solve the right problems.  They take the time to probe and understand.  They care enough about doing the right thing for the customer that they challenge the customer’s preconceived notions about the problem and solution.  They get the customer to think differently, to see and solve the real problem.

It takes great knowledge of your customer’s business, it takes great knowledge of your solutions, it takes the patience and diligence to probe and understand.  Finally, it takes great courage to suggest to the customer that there might be a better way.

Too often, inertia, time pressures, the push to do a deal quickly, or simply our conditioning as problem solvers push us to leap to solutions.  We as sales people do this, our customers do this. 

Our greatest value add as sales professionals is to help our customers solve the right problems.  Are you taking the time to work with your customers to do this or are you leaping to solutions?

I’m sitting in my office–it’s 97 degrees in the office, I’m fuming, it’s been one of those weeks.  I was traveling all week, thinking I was fortunate enough to miss the very hot weather we are having in Southern California (OK, some of you may think I am whining). 

On Friday, I called my wife, both air conditioning systems in the house had failed — we had just replaced them last October with completely new systems.  I told her to call the air conditioner company to get out to the house.  That evening, I called her again, “had they fixed the problem?”  “No–they haven’t shown up yet.  They said they would be here by 1:00, it’s now 4:30,” she said.  I told her, I’d call the owner of the company to see what was up. 

I called him, didn’t get him, but talked to the office manager.  She apologized, saying that they were running behind schedule, but someone would be there Friday.  Saturday morning, before jumping on the plane, I called my wife.  “Are things back to normal?”  “They haven’t shown up yet……”  She had that tone in her voice, I thought I was about to get a performance review.  I put in a hasty call to the company–got their voicemail and left a polite but urgent voice message.  When I landed, guess what —-yes, you know the drill—they still hadn’t shown up.  This time, I got the owner on the line.  He said that he would personally come by to look at and fix the systems.  I told him that I would re-arrange my schedule so that I could be home all afternoon for him.

Well, that was yesterday, today’s Sunday, no messages, no air conditioning, nothing.  I spent much of my time preparing letters to the Better Business Bureau and other organizations—I guess the heat is getting to me.  Now tomorrow, I have to re-scheduled my business meetings so I can get this guy to meet his commitments (by the way–it’s all warranty work, he doesn’t appear to want to honor that.).

I wish this was an isolated case.  But we encounter it every day–in both big and little ways.  It’s the sales person that committed to call you at a certain time, then 30 minutes later–when you are in a meeting, he calls offering some excuse but expecting to take your time.  It’s the team-mate who has committed a certain set of deliverables on a certain schedule, but fails to meet the commitment–not just late, but no deliverables.  It’s the person that’s constantly 10 minutes late to a meeting, keeping everyone else waiting….   I’ll stop there, I could get carried away.

This afternoon, as I’ve been reflecting, I’ve realized how common place it is for us not to meet our commitments.  Sure we tend to make the “big one’s” — at least when they serve our self interests.  But, it’s unusual for us to meet the little commitments.  I happen to be a little obsessive about phone calls and meetings.  It always strikes me as strange when at least 90% of the people I’m calling exclaim, “Wow–right on the dot!”  They think it’s unusual, to me it’s meeting my commitment.

I few years ago, I was talking to a friend.  He’d built a very good contracting business in our community.  I was asking him his secret, he replied, “I wish it was my ‘craftsmanship,’ but really it’s about meeting commitments.  I show up on time, I do the work they contracted for, I clean up afterwards—just the basics.  That’s really 80% of what’s made me successful and why they hire me over other very capable contractors.”

Just the basics—-showing up on time—-meeting your commitments—–80% of customer satisfaction and differentiation.   It’s a shame it’s not the norm–why do we settle for it?

I’m tempted to end this post with something to the effect of “sweating the details….”  Sorry, the heat is getting to me.

Customer Centricity is a hot topic these days.  I get on my soapbox on Customer Focus, Customer Experience, How Buying Is Changing, and various aspects of being Customer Centric.  As a result, I get a lot of calls and queries about being Customer Centric.  To tell you the truth, many of them are very disturbing.  They often go something like this (this composite, actually understates what I’ve experienced).

Caller:  My organization has to be more customer centric.

Dave:  Cool, what’s driving this initiative?

Caller:  My boss has told us we have to do this.

Dave:  OK, that’s interesting.  Why does he say that you need to be more customer centric?

Caller:  I don’t know, he just told us to figure it out and to become more customer centric.

Dave:  Hmmm….. What do your customers think about their experience with you?

Caller:  I don’t know, we don’t have the time to talk to them.  Maybe you can do that for us.

Dave:  Well, we can certainly survey your customers and get their views, but part of customer centricity is connecting with your customers better—engaging them—-listening to them.  Do you have any sense of what they are saying?

Caller :  (I start hearing some frustration in his voice)  I understand what you say, but we’re just too busy.  I need to respond to my boss, can you help us?

Dave:  Well, can you tell me what you are looking for?

Caller:  Well we just need to know how to be more customer centric.  Can you tell us what programs we need to put in place and what the investment would be.  It’s important that we measure how we are doing, perhaps you can design a customer centricity dashboard for us?  Could you tell us what others are doing so we can copy them?  Maybe you can give us a short seminar?

I’ll stop here.

On the one hand, I like the calls, they represent great opportunities for us.  On the other hand, I worry about these calls. 

There are many things we do to help organizations understand their customers, better focus on their customers, engage their customers, and the list can go on.  But customer centricity is not a set of programs and initiatives an organization implements.   It is not a new set of metrics.  Customer centricity is a state of mind, it’s a set of values, it’s a culture all focused on serving the customer.

When I look at truly customer centric companies, the programs, initiatives and metrics are not that different from those organizations that are not customer centric.  But what makes them different is how they embed the “voice of the customer” into everything they do.

All companies have new product development processes.  Customer centric companies embed customers into the development—whether it’s customer councils, customer participation in phase reviews, customers participating in the development—the footprints of customers are all over the development process.

All companies have customer problem resolutions processes.  Customer centric companies worry about “what’s best for the customer,” others worry about “what’s best for the company.”  Customer centric companies actually listen to what comes up and change policies, practices, processes to reduce problems.  Others “manage the issue.”

All companies have websites, they all talk about their customers at the web site.  Customer centric companies celebrate their customers at the web site, they talk about their success, they congratulate them.   Their annual reports are filled with stories of customer successes.

Stories about customers abound in customer centric companies.  In meetings, when they talk about customers, they use actual customer names—individuals, companies.  In companies that are not customer centric, they talk about the customer in abstract terms—they call them “the customer,” not Jill Smith at XYZ company.  Sometimes they don’t even talk about the customer, but focus on themselves, their products, their operations.

Customer centric companies sometimes make customers unhappy—as do others.  But customer centric companies always embed a customer perspective in every decision.  Customer centric companies communicate to the customers the rationale behind the decisions, recognizing that some won’t like the decision.

Metrics are important in customer centric companies—just as they are in every organization.  Customer focused metrics are things like:  Sales, profitability, growth, customer share, market share, customer retention, customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, warranty returns, days outstanding/age on receivables, employee satisfaction and the list goes on.  Other organizations measure the same things.

But why aren’t the measures different?  The answer is simple, Customer Centricity is good business!  Let’s just use good business metrics to determine how we are performing.

Companies don’t become customer centric by implementing new programs and initiatives.  Companies don’t become customer centric by implementing new metrics.

Companies become customer centric by embedding the customer perspective—the voice of the customer—into everything they do, every day.  Customer centricity is a set of values, a frame of mind.  Within an organization, it is embodied by a culture focused on listening to the customer, engaging the customer, considering the customer in everything they do.

I’m constantly surprised by how poorly many sales people communicate within their own organizations.  Sales people complain, “I’m not getting the information I need to finalize my proposal to the customer,”  “My customer isn’t getting the service levels I committed,”  “I’m not getting the support I need to do this deal,”  and the whining can go on.  At the same time, when I talk to people within the organization, I hear, “Our sales people aren’t keeping us informed of what’s going on, we need to know what’s happening to manage our resources properly,”  “The sale person just dumps all this work on my desk, I don’t know what they want or what they’ve committed to the customer.  They just expect me to handle it.”  And likewise, the list can go on.  Sometimes, the treatment these internal people get from sales people borders on being rude and abusive.

No sales person, whether a lonely “hunter” or someone “farming” a current customer can do their job by themselves.  Every sales person needs support from within their own company, whether it’s pre-sales technical support, whether it is leads or programs from marketing, whether it is support in pricing a proposal, legal review of a contract, support in entering the order, support in customizing or changing the product offering in some way, servicing the customer after the sale.  Every sales person is really part of a team, dependent on their support for the sales person to be successful.  At the same time, each member of this team needs information and support from the sales person to be able to respond.

Then there are those times, when the sales person needs something special, something needs to be rushed, a call to a specific customer needs to be made, we need to make an exception for a special case.  Sales people always have something that needs to be done for them, and they need it yesterday.

The best sales people recognize their success is dependent on the support they get from within their own companies.  They carefully build and nurture relationships internally.  They over-communicate what’s happening with customers.  They are effusive in thanking people for their support–along with buying key people lunch, coffee, or flowers to thank them for special support.

When I first started selling, a mentor gave me a piece of advice I’ve carried with me ever since.  He said, “Dave, sometimes you have to sell harder within the company than you do to your customer.” 

What are you doing to “sell” within the company?  How are you keeping your “team” informed–so they can support you?  How are you thanking them for helping make you successful?  Are you doing this every day?

This morning, I was out for my morning run around the lake.  Up ahead, I saw a guy approaching, wearing headphones, smiling, head bouncing with the music.  Looked like he was having a great run.  Everyone he passed, he shouted, “Hi!”

As he approached me, he shouted, “Hi!”  I responded, “Great day isn’t it?”  He didn’t respond, and continued on.  I was struck by his lack of response and thought about it during the rest of my run.  I realized, that he wasn’t interested in engaging me in a conversation, after all, he was wearing headphones, preferring to listen to music.  All he wanted to do was shout out and greet people.

The interaction reminded me a lot of what seems to be happening in social media.  Everyone talks about the value of social media in establishing communities and having conversations.  The reality seems to be more like this guy, there is a lot of shouting, but little intent to listen.

I’m as much at fault as everyone, but it seems that we get consumed with VOLUME—both in quantity of content we put out and how much it is heard.  But we aren’t as good at engaging in the conversation. 

My friend, Paul Castain, posted a brilliant post on this topic the other day:  Content Is King—Are You Freaking Kidding Me?  Ironically, it generated a great conversation.

We seem so consumed with generating content and getting seen, we forget to comment and engage people.  If the point of social media is to establish community and to stimulate discussion, then we need to balance quantity and volume with engagement.  Our content needs to inspire interaction.

As creators of social media content, we have to take time to participate in the conversation, to comment and respond.

Twitter makes it even worse, there are these tools that automatically Tweet certain blogs.  The person doing the Tweeting doesn’t even read my stuff any more, their tools just automatically Tweet everything that I publish.  It’s always interesting, within about 30 minutes of publishing an article, the same 10-15 people tweet it, in exactly the same format.

I’m flattered they think enough of my stuff that they blindly tweet it, but they have lost all credibility for me in Twitter.  I follow people that offer great insight, I know when I read whatever they are talking about, I will get value from it.  When I tweet, pointing someone to an article, it’s because I think my audience will get value from the article.  Now, when people are by-passing this, automatically tweeting everything that comes from me and others, I tend to think of it as the Twitter equivalent of SPAM  (TWAM??).

Will the rush for content, will the rush to creating a lot of visibility, will the tools that allow us to mindlessly publish but not engage just erode the power of social media?  How will great stuff stand out in from the mass of junk?  How will our voices be heard as the VOLUME keeps getting turned up?  Will social media become a giant sinkhole of people shouting “Hello,”  but having no intent of listening? What happens when we lose the conversation?