Greg's Right FIT #382

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Selling
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Selling

• How long does it take a message to be heard? Some say three times. (probably referring to adults, not teenagers!) Knowing this, assume only 1/10 of your messages get through. 30 is the magic number in marketing. Rule of 30. 
• Business development people: before you say "I hate scripts" remember Meryl Streep uses scripts. Instead say, "I hate the poor delivery of scripts" and vote to get better at using them.
• People don't remember what you say as much as they remember how you made them feel.
• I keep a set of 3x5 cards for language prompts to improve my communication skills. I put "Client says" or "Client asks" on one side, and my reactions on back. It's funny how many times I have written, "What do you mean by that?" 

Being Human - What you say

"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.”
– Ernest Hemingway

We've been running through a quick-and-dirty diagnostic I use to orient myself inside a business development team. It helps me shape the conversation and ID opportunities for growth. This week I'll touch on the last part of the diagram, Conversation Quality. 

Once we've established how effective we are in our target market awareness, and that we're talking to the right people, I want to know what's happening inside our conversations. If you do the first two elements of this diagnostic well, you're probably finding a good number of opportunities. As the saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, but only if it's an active squirrel. Next up is working on building better opportunities and turning them into sales as quickly as possible through better conversations. 

To get a feel for conversation quality, we listen. A lot. I look through dozens of emails, listen to a lot of calls, and ride-along on visits if possible. What I'm listening for is a sense of structure more than any particular conversation element. Inside the structure, whatever it is, we can identify and work on improvements. If there isn't an apparent structure we'll work on that. 

To be effective in sales it's better to be there than it is to be good. As long as you're there, though, might as well be good too. 

Good stuff. 

Random Stuff

"I drink to make other people more interesting.”
— Ernest Hemingway

There have been a few articles about the younger generation's lack of alcohol intake. Other articles have taken on the wisdom of a drink a day's health benefits. There have been a few about the growth of "mocktails" too. It turns out that leaving booze behind has health benefits, or maybe limits the damage done by tippling here and there. 

Yesterday, on a flight to our nation's capital, I sat behind a group of three women who ignored the latest research and made it their mission to clean the plane out of rosè. Their volume increased as the plane ride went on and at one point they looked at me and accused me of making fun of them. I wasn't, but I did find it funny to watch them balancing their little plastic wine glasses as each one went to visit the restroom. 

It got me thinking. What is my relationship to booze? I contemplated it while knocking down a Midterm Manhattan (such clever drink names at these DC bars) and started to forget the question while tasting my second Midterm Manhattan.After that, all bets were off.

I should have stuck to mocktails.