Attention Salespeople: You Will Never Get to Experience This
As a consultant to Financial Advisors, one of my favourite things is the feedback I receive from consulting clients that successfully implement our concepts. I am sure my esteemed colleagues would concur.
Although this story is not quite as exciting as: “Terry! I used your referral process, and got 600 referrals in one hour!” it is a very powerful example to contrast the approach of the consultant compared to the approach of a salesperson.
Here is the feedback, precisely as it came to us via email. ‘Sherri’ is one of our consultants:
Sherri - thought you’d get a kick out of this…
After a bit of small talk [not much I might add] the prospective client immediately jumped into why he came to see us and what assets he has…when he pushed his statement over to me, I politely turned it over and grinned, paused then presented him with our agenda and shared with him our objective for the day… he noted that I had politely let him think he was running the meeting then “swiftly” and kindly took the meeting over, following the fit process. He “loved it” that we have systematic approach and procedures that we follow…he ended up sharing far more personal info then he “thought” he would and at the end he tried to close me, several times I might add…I asked him to think about our conversation and that I would call him in two days.
It was fun.
Ok, I don’t know about you, but the idea of a prospective client trying to close me on the idea of doing business together certainly sounds like a lot more fun than me trying to sell the prospect on the idea.
Quite often when a Financial Advisor, with a ‘sales’ mindset, hears about our concepts, particularly this one in which prospective clients should never be sold, the reaction of disbelief and scepticism is palpable. “Why the heck wouldn’t I close a guy that is right in front of me that wants to seal the deal?” is a common question we hear.
Currently when I get that question, my left eye twitches a little, and I attempt to explain the downside of the sales approach. Now, I think that I will just get some pre-printed postcards with the above story printed on. I’ll hand off the card to the salesperson, and then go do something that is actually fun with my time.
Oh! I just thought of the perfect P.S. for my postcard:
People do not refer salespeople. They refer consultants.
By Terry Gronbeck-Jones, Senior Consultant, Pareto Systems