“Be positive and professional, but don’t try to persuade.” This was a principle we followed in a therapeutic community I ran in the early 1970s. It is also one that can be applied in other fields.
Young people applied to the community because they wanted to escape from mental hospitals, troubled families or restrictive probation orders.
We outlined what we could offer to help them to achieve their goals and the guidelines they would be required to follow. It was then up to them whether or not they decided to join.
Whilst aiming to make things attractive, we did not try persuade. Why? It was important to present the offering in a professional way, but it was the individual’s right to make their own choice.
The same approach applies in other situations, even those where people may want to get business. Let’s explore how this works in practice.
1) You can prepare properly.
Imagine you have been asked to pitch for a piece of work. Some sales people see this as a competition. They want to persuade the client to love them and win the business.
Other people see it as a positive opportunity. They can do their best, but they cannot guarantee the outcome.
They aim to understand the customer, clarify their own offering and present in a professional way. The client can then decide what is right for them.
Let’s explore how you can pursue this latter route.
* Be clear on what you offer.
Great performers are niche suppliers. They focus on what they do best and do it brilliantly. They are clear on:
- The ‘What’: the specific results they can deliver.
- The ‘Why’: the potential benefits to customers.
- The ‘Who’: the specific target group.
- The ‘How’: the strategies for delivering the results.
- The 'When’: the specific results they can deliver and by when.
* Be clear on what the customer wants: their picture of success.
Clarify what the customer wants. It can be useful to identify:
- The key sponsors: the decision-makers who can hire or fire you.
- The challenges they face, the results they want to achieve and their picture of success.
- The strengths they can build-on and the possible quick wins.
- The things they can and can’t control and the things they have tried before.
- The Dos and Don'ts for working with them.
This helps to build a picture of what the customer wants.
* Be clear on whether you want to go for the business.
Make a decision. Ask yourself: “Bearing in mind what I offer and what the customer wants, do I want to work with them?” If so, continue with your preparation for the presentation. If not, be prepared to walk away.
* Be professional in the way you prepare.
Assuming you want to go ahead, do everything possible to set-up the session to succeed. Prepare your presentation and then double-check everything.
Contact the client to confirm the time of the session and the people who will attend. Clarify the specific goals for the session, the physical set-up and the dress-code.
Rehearse everything. Imagine going into the building, meeting people, setting-up the presentation and giving the presentation. Clarify the questions people could ask and the potential answers. Anticipate the things that could go wrong and your back-up plan.
How might you follow some of these steps in your own way? Try tackling the exercise on this theme.
This invites you to do the following things. First, describe a specific situation where you may be presenting to a customer. Second, describe how you can prepare properly for the presentation. Try completing the following sentences.
2) You can present in a positive and professional way, but not try to persuade.
Great performers know their chosen market. They master their specialism – as chefs, singers, business people or whatever – and aim to provide specific benefits for the customers.
Certainly they are prepared to customise what they offer to get ‘win-wins’, but not to the point of diluting their offering. The ‘80%’ of what they offer stays the same, because that is what interests the potential buyer. The other ‘20%’ can be altered – within parameters – to make sure customers get what they want.
Let’s imagine you have taken this approach and are ready to make the presentation. Getting to the venue early, you will again mentally rehearse everything that is going to happen. Meeting people, you will be professional, polite and connect with them in your own way.
Moving into the presentation, you will establish credibility, then focus on clarity and concrete results. Let’s explore these points.
* Credibility.
Establish this by showing people that you understand the world from their point of view.
* Clarity.
Show you understand the results they want delivered.
* Concrete results.
Again outline ‘What’ you would deliver; ‘How’ you would deliver it and ‘When’. This latter part to include some early successes.
Move onto the question and answer session. This is your opportunity to really connect with people. Listen carefully and, if appropriate, ‘play back’ the question to make sure you heard it properly. Give your answer, complete with real-life examples.
Move between the ‘concept’ and the ‘concrete’. You may start by answering on strategic level, but then outline specific examples that bring it to life. Dare to describe both the pluses and minuses of your answer or approach.
Check that you have answered the question, then move onto the next. Conclude the session by thanking people for their time and finishing in a positive way.
“But shouldn’t you try to persuade people to adopt your point of view?” somebody may say.
You can only do your best and some things are beyond your control. The best ‘persuasion’ is showing you can help the customer to succeed. People have the right to make up their own minds. If it is the right ‘fit’, there will be the chance of long-lasting success. If not, then it won’t work anyway.
Let’s return to the situation in which you would like to make a presentation. Try completing the following sentence.
3) You can do your best to get positive results.
This approach obviously has both pluses and minuses.
The pluses are:
- You stay true to yourself and do your best.
- You get to know the customer and their picture of success.
- You offer what you believe will help them to succeed.
- You try to connect and show how to deliver concrete results.
- You increase the chances of getting business with customers with whom there is the right ‘fit’.
The minuses are:
- There will be lots of time and energy spent preparing and making the presentation.
- The customer may not want what you offer.
- You won’t get business with customers who don’t share similar values, but you don’t want that anyway.
Bearing these factors in mind, what are the possibilities of success? Providing you have reached the right target group – and do the right preparation and presentation – the chances are pretty high.
You won’t win every piece of business but, in the long term, you will get enough to continue prospering.
————-
“What happens if you get a piece of business, but then the client does not fulfil their part of the deal?” somebody may ask. "Isn’t that a situation where you should try to persuade them to adopt your approach?”
Let’s return to the contracting process described in the therapeutic community. Sometimes a young person would sign-up for the programme, but then break the contract. They knew the goals and the guidelines: it was not a matter of trying to persuade them to behave differently. We acted immediately and they left the community.
Certainly they could re-apply to re-join at a future date – normally around 2 months – but they must then be prepared to follow the guidelines. They had chosen to break the rules and there were consequences.
“But you can’t behave that way with clients,” somebody may say. “They are paying the wages.”
Let’s assume you have made clear contracts with a client. Everybody has agreed on the ‘What’, ‘Why’, ‘How’, ‘Who’ and ‘When’. Imagine that three months into the work several things are happening.
First, you are fulfilling your part of the contract.
Second, you have produced some early successes.
Third, the client is not fulfilling their part. They are failing to provide resources, failing to pay bills, failing to meet deadlines or whatever.
You can be polite and professional, but outline the options. Start by revisiting the goals and saying something like:
“Let’s go back to the results we aiming to deliver. These are: 1) To _______. 2) To ________. 3) To ________.
"Bearing these goals in mind, there are several options as we go forward together.
"Option A is to follow the original contract.
"Option B is to follow some parts of the contract.
"Option C is not to follow the contract.
"There may be other options and each has consequences.
"We would like to continue working and follow the original contract, but would like to hear your point of view. Which route do you want to follow?”
Sounds tough, but you are simply stating the agreed contract. It is up to the person, team or organisation if they want to continue working with you. If so, great. If not, you must be prepared to move on.
Try tackling the exercise on this theme. Let’s return to where you may be aiming to get business and help the customer to achieve success. Describe the specific things you can do to achieve positive results. Try completing the following sentence.
Posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2011 at 4:11 pm in Strengths, The Strengths Blog | RSS feed
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