Giver's Gain
By Asher Blocker
It's easy to drive new sales to your business when you apply the "Giver's Gain" principal. Find out why ...
TAsher Blocker
he sales business is a crazy one. Everyone who is engulfed in the craziness of a sales environment spends their time chasing leads, finding angles, and learning advantages to pursue the next big deal. I, myself, know little else. Once out of college, I was immediately thrust into the sales force. It was an interesting transition. In college, everything involved free-flowing thought and pursuing natural interests and ideas. The sales world, I immediately noticed, had a much rougher edge. In my first job, I witnessed first hand application of the art of being "pushy." It's a foreign concept to most people because it involves leaving our comfort zone. It involves reprogramming our minds in a number of different ways.
While we spend most of our lives steering people towards our personal gain or interest, we almost do it subconsciously. Doing sales work, on the other hand, feels very "forced" and uncomfortable to many people. I was no different at the beginning. I eventually came around, and started learning ways stabilize my thoughts and reactions and thus become better at talking to people and convincing people to use my product. However, once I became comfortable doing it, I hit another bump in the road. It would change the way I looked at sales forever.
It began subtly. The first thing I noticed involved my appearance. I would walk into a business with my button-up shirt and freshly pressed slacks, only to be turned away by the gatekeeper the moment I opened my mouth. The decision-maker was always "in a meeting" or working on an important job. I couldn't figure out why I was constantly getting shot down before even I got to the right person. This was bad enough. But I began to experience a trend that was even worse. When I would get to the right person, they were mysteriously reluctant to "seal the deal" or make any kind of commitment despite our dialogue going just as I would have wanted. Allow me to paint a picture for you (I'm sure a few of those reading this have experienced a similar scenario). I'm out on a sales call. I'm talking with the Decision-Maker. Everything is going great. I answer every question perfectly. I have a solution for every concern. I hit all the key points that make what I'm offering attractive to the consumer. I do everything right, and everything I would have hoped to do before walking in. Then, to my dismay, my attempts to close some sort of agreement are met with responses like "well I think I should wait" or "I'm just going to need a little time to think about it." I was baffled. This would happen time and time again.
Now understand that I am logical to a fault. Things are very black and white to me. It's simply the way I was built. When I'm placed on the consumer side of the table, I allow logic to bring me to all my conclusions. Did he answer my questions? Did he address my concerns? What is the cost-reward ratio for what I'm being offered? If I can safely answer these questions, then why would I put off making a decision? In my head, it would mean that the last 30 minutes spent discussing it were wasted. My father would always ask, "why do tomorrow what you can do today?" He would stress to me the value of getting things over with. He loathed procrastination. He would say that "the people who put off making are the same people who watch and wonder why others are more successful." And while I bought into this brand of fatherly advice, it wasn't going to change the results I was getting in the sales world. I wasn't going to make people think like me. I had to do what any good business person would do ... I had to adapt.
After examining my recent trials and tribulations in the sales market and seeking out advice from wiser, more experienced people, I came to what I alcoholics refer to as "a moment of clarity." I realized that people don't like to be sold, they like to be referred. Whether we are conscious of it or not, it is a flaw rooted deep within our psyche. Have you ever noticed, especially when you're young and don't know better, that you're always romantically attracted to the person who is not aggressively pursuing you? That's because when someone tries to sell themselves to you, it triggers an emotional response that they are of lower value. After all, if what they have is so great, then why would they be trying so hard to sell it to you? If it's everything they say it is, then why wouldn't you be beating their door down to get it.
I started reading books and articles concerning the psychology of this concept. It all became so clear. If I walked into your establishment wearing a shirt that said Johnny's Pizza on it, and began telling you how great Johnny's Pizza was, you would totally dismiss me. But if you were talking to a friend who told you that they went by Johnny's Pizza a couple of days before and it was fantastic, you'd make a point to stop by for lunch that week. Because without giving it a conscious thought, you understood that on the surface, your friend had nothing to gain from promoting Johnny's Pizza to you. So you took his advice wholeheartedly. I fell in love with this concept, and immediately understood that I had to change the way I approached getting new business. So the transformation began.
The first thing I did was get involved in a couple of referral groups. We would meet once a week, and discuss ways to help each other. We developed relationships with each other, referring our friends and acquaintances to each other to help grow our businesses. It was very refreshing. The more I helped other people grow their business, the more they would help me. The second thing I did was figure out ways to help the people that were close to my target audience. I determined who my target audience came in contact with on a daily basis, and did my best to win the favor and appreciation of those people any way I could. I'd take them out to lunch, help them with some manual labor, and ask nothing in return. I knew what kind of response these actions would elicit. They felt almost obligated to help me any way they could because of my generosity. I wasn't using them; I was giving them a helping hand. And because they were constantly in direct contact with potential clients of mine, they went out of their way to tell them how great I was to work with. The final thing I did was probably the most effective. I began anonymously e-mailing out copies of articles that had been written about our business. As they got forwarded from person to person, potential clients that I had given up on would read the article and mysteriously call me and want to get started. This was no coincidence. This was my new concept displayed in its highest form. These people were not only referred by another person, but by a respected publication that found the quality of our product to be so high they deemed it worthy of writing a full article on it. I was thrilled.
All in all, these ideas drastically altered my entire approach to obtaining new business. My change in strategy gave me a new confidence to try unorthodox methods, and explore more unique approaches. I even began dressing the way I wanted again. The way I figured it, if I walked in with holey jeans and flip-flops, I could walk right by the gatekeeper without getting tagged as a salesperson. And just like the other new changes ... It worked.
Now, I have no illusions about the origin the referral concept. I certainly didn't create this. It's been around for a while. But nevertheless it was new to me. The results I experienced from my change in game plan were astounding. My product had not changed. Our core business concepts had not changed. The only thing that changed is that potential clients were hearing about our product from people other than us; people who had nothing to gain from the promotion of it. This established value in the client's eyes, and the rest was easy. I have shared my experience with many people because it is pure. I didn't have a boss or a handbook showing me the way. I had no preconceived notions. This was a young guy learning on the job. These are results and determinations tested in the field. I share the story of it with people simply because that's the way I work now. Most of what I do is to help others promote and grow their business, because I know it's going to come right back. They can probably help me in ways I can't help them and vice-versa. Some call it "Giver's Gain." Some call it "paying it forward." I call it "Good Business."
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