Oh! The Places You'll Go

What is the one thing that we all hear when it comes to how to persuade, how to sell, how to negotiate and so forth?

The importance of listening.

The most knowledgeable, passionate, and articulate person in the world can fail in communicating their message if they don't know the values, emotions, and motives of their audience.

In the world of business we build companies that solve problems. We increase efficiency, reduce costs, increase sales, and so forth. We take our products and/or services to the market with a fairly good knowledge of the value it will serve to the organizations we want to sell to.

In our sales and marketing efforts we try to guide our prospective clients to recognize that there is a problem. We make sure that we are on top of mind when they are ready to search for a solution. We attempt to position ourselves to be the best choice when a prospective client is evaluating their options. If all goes well we win a client.

But do we really know why we won that client?

The thing about sales in the world of Business to Business is that sometimes we forget that we are really in a world where we are still selling Person to Person. Our new client most likely did not select the product or service based on a logical algorithm but more likely the decision was based on things such as trust, like-ability, influence of peers, current standing  within their organization, personal goals, and so forth.

Just imagine how powerful our messaging can be if we could tap into the personalities, values, culture, and motives of the people we want to sell to.

We can! Simply by listening to what our clients and prospects have to say.

If we could sit back and watch how people interact with their peers, give them a platform to talk about themselves and what they care about, and let them develop a few of their own ideas of how to solve their problems, we can learn how to best serve people who make the purchasing decisions, as opposed to the organization that could benefit from the purchase.

Although social media enables organizations to broadcast their message through video, podcasts, blogs and so forth, it can also be a platform to simply listen and learn what others have to say. In fact, there is a lot being said online right now, some of it may be relevant to you.

Are you there? Are you listening?

It's opener there in the wide open air

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy and footsy as you
and when things start to happen
don't worry don't stew
just go right along
You'll start happening to

Oh the places you'll go!

-Dr. Seuss