I hate being trite with this analogy, but I will. My post “Cold Calling Was Never ‘Alive'” generated a lot of interesting questions and conversation. They were variations on the same theme, “I need to get to these people to tell them how we can help them….. I need to share our experience in working with customers like them….. I need to schedule a demo of what we do……”
Repeating myself: Customers don’t care about it until they do! Yet this is where we always start with our outreach.
Let me try to attack this issue with a different analogy. Something each of us has experienced.
It’s that “person” at a get-together, a cocktail party, having coffee at a conference or show. You know what I’m referring to.
It’s that person that elbows their way into a conversation. First they introduce themselves—and that’s OK, as long as they aren’t interrupting, but too often they do. But then, without pausing to take a breath, they start talking about themselves. Who they are, what they do, where they live, how much they’ve accomplished, who they know, on and on and on. They never pause, they keep going. If they ask a question, it’s oriented to getting people to acknowledge how interesting they are.
Or sometimes, the feign interest in others, asking a question, listening to a couple of answers, but then taking over the conversation presenting their perspectives
And each of us knows how we feel and respond to this individual. We look at each other, we roll our eyes, we stifle laughs or the urge to say “Shut up!” As that individual drones on about what they have achieved, we start making our escape plans. We go grab another drink, we head to the bathroom, we pretend we have just gotten a call on our mobile and walk away.
And we join another group, just starting to get into a fascinating conversation, out of the corner of our eyes, we see the same person approaching. Before he can join, we escape so we don’t go through it again.
Then there’s a different type of individual. They quietly join the group, listening to the discussion. They may nod, smile, laugh at something someone has said. Then they ask a question. They focus on the person talking and others in the group. They want to learn about the others. Who they are, what they’re interested in, how they ended up at the party. They join in contributing to the conversation in meaningful and interesting ways, but never talking about themselves.
And as the conversation continues, we get curious, we start asking the person about themselves, what they are, what they are interested in, how they came to be at the party. We want to learn more about the individual that has shown so much interest in us and who has contributed to the conversation.
We each have encountered these two different types of people. Whether at a gathering, party, conference. We all respond similarly to each. Later we regale others with our stories of the event, talking both about the self centered jerk and the fascinating person who was both interested and interesting.
We’ve been there, we’ve done that!
Knowing all of this and how we each respond, why is it that we model the very same behaviors we detested at the party? Why do we engage prospects and customers with self centered conversations that are all about us, demonstrating no interest in the people we are talking to.
It just doesn’t make sense! We detest those the self centered people at the parties/conferences we attend, we avoid them, seeking the people who are interested and interesting in conversations. Yet we emulate the behaviors of the first type of person in our conversations with the customer.
It’s so ironic, on the one hand we know those people we want to avoid at these meetings, yet we emulate those behaviors in our conversations.
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