If you read my earlier post entitled “How to make business fast..” you’ll know I wrote about serving others – and making them the priority not the home team of me, myself and I. This is a bit of a PS to that blog.
I recently was asked to do a complimentary coaching call with a realtor – who’d had issues in his life and been struggling as a result of stepping out of the business for some time and was now wanting to re-launch himself in a more productive and effective way than he’d originally been working hoping to fast track himself and make up for lost time. It seemed to me in our call that he’d kind of made the decision to step up – but still seemed to me to have his back foot stuck in the mud of apathy. I know that moving forward takes two feet and so early in the course of our call I decided to drill down on some focuses so I could get a sense of where he was starting from so that at the very least I could help him with some of my thoughts for managing the next hurdle- sans coach. I did just that. And he had a couple of interesting comments to make – including “wow.” ” That’s a great idea.” “That’s a way better way of doing it.” “I wouldn’t ever have thought of that.” “I don’t think any body does that.”
You get the idea.
The point I want to make is this… he also said – “That’s a good sales technique. Give them a taste of something so they will come back for more.”
His comment came as a bit of a surprise until I realized that I had very early in the conversation ruled that this man likely wasn’t ready for the kind of commitment I require – two feet wanting to move in the same direction – but I hadn’t told him that I wouldn’t be taking him on as a client.
He saw my suggestions as a sales pitch. I saw my suggestions as the help he didn’t know he needed to get over the next hurdle on his own. It was also my idea that those suggestions would likely put the cash in his pocket sooner quicker faster which would likely be an encouragement for him as well.
Same coin. One side looks like a sales pitch. The other side was service above and beyond.
How do you create the framework so someone knows which is which?
I know what I could do – and did. What about you? Any thoughts?