The LinkedIn invitation started with: “Dave, I think there is an opportunity for us to work together….”
We all know what that is code for, the individual simply wants to sell me something. We use all these words to try and mask our objective. We might “work together,” or we might “partner,” or one of my favorites, “let’s collaborate.”
We use them to, not so thinly, disguise our real intention, “We want your money!”
Why do we think our prospects are stupid, why do we think we are distracting them from our true intent–we want to interest them in buying from us?
Why are we averse to the idea of saying, “I think I have an idea that can help you improve your ability to achieve your goals, I’d like to share that with you?” Our customers know we aren’t doing this out of the kindness of our hearts. They know that we have an objective. They know that, should they choose to go forward, we will be presenting something they can buy.
Imagine how things might change if we engage our prospects, recognizing their intelligence, focusing on things they care about–which we can help them with. What if we eliminated all the pretenses we use to disguise what we and the customer are doing, and just worked with the customer to improve their business—doing that through the implementation of our products and solutions.
Life would be so much simpler, our customers would be more appreciative.
Afterword: By the way, the person making the LinkedIn offer to work together had never visited my profile, so one wonders, “How does he know if there is something on which we can work together?” Silly me, he doesn’t want to work together, he just wants me to buy.
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