Greg's Right FIT #515–This week: Scripts, Belief, Party pics

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

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Scripts
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Scripts

• Professional service business development people say "I hate scripts," when I suggest them. To them it suggests being "too salesy." I remind them its not the script that makes them sound bad. Daniel Day Lewis uses scripts. Instead of hating scripts say, "I hate the poor delivery of scripts" and get better.
• Using notes in a talk gets labeled as a negative. The root of this is not wanting to sound like a robot. I get it, but consider the listener's perspective. As a listener, we want you to be clear and brief. Use notes to help with clarity and brevity.
• At a writing workshop it was suggested we try writing a movie script. They suggested software for format, a book for structure, and told us to read a script from a movie. I picked the Coen brother's adaptation of "No Country for Old Men." Wow. I'm impressed.
• The best way to let your prospects enjoy the sales process is for us to listen and take notes, leading them through the process. We want to be like professional dancers gliding them across the dance floor. Effortless. Impossible for an outsider to tell who is leading and who is following. To do that we need scripts.

Being Human – That's what he said

“Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” - St. Thomas

Let's spend a minute on return-on-investment (ROI) calculators. The last one I looked at was on a software website that said: "XXXX ROI calculator
How much potential ROI could your brand drive with XXXX? Let’s find out."

I don't have a problem with the calculator itself. It's a solid approach to a common question. The issue is the numbers and calculations aren't starting with a client sourced opportunity. It's a bunch of numbers signifying not much that is supposed to lead the potential buyer into a call. I haven't seen that work.

To improve ROI tools, we can do three things:

• Start with the client's to-do list.
  Your clients have things they want to get done. My shorthand for this is, "what do they need more of or less of?" When an ROI tool is couched in a client's to-do list it automatically becomes more useful.
• Let them do the math.
  We do our particular work day in and day out. Our prospects, on the other hand, may make a decision about our solutions once in a while at best. This gives us an advantage when it comes to math. We know the calculations correct numbers. Don't use that information. Wait for your prospects to do the math. If you do it, they might not believe it. If they do it, it's truth.
• Question obvious results.
  Any numbers or calculations, no matter how obvious, need to be double checked. "Really?" asked in a sincere way will help prospects check their assumptions and make ROI more meaningful. I've sat through meetings where the prospect says, "This is a game changer!" and the rep excitedly nods along. Turn these moments of insight into a trigger for asking about what now looks obvious, "If this is truly a game changer, why hasn't it been done earlier?"
• Be conservative.
  Taking our prospects numbers and halving them shows good judgement and serves as a reminder that sometimes it's cheaper to keep a problem than to fix it. Humans are not great at predicting the future, so be the careful one.

The common denominator with all four of these ROI improvement tactics is patience. The more time we spend on developing the opportunity (the "Return" in ROI) the more likely it is your prospect figures out how to pay for it. (The "Investment")

Help your team by questioning whether or not the excitement of the client comes from the client directly, or is simply a case of us leading the witness.

Random Stuff

“All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.” – Richard Avedon

Now that we have a new member of the family, we've been doing a little rearranging of the nest. Some old items are moved out, new ones moved in. A room has been repainted and colors chosen for the rest of the house. Somewhere along the line, the storage side of the basement was cleaned up too.

In two of the storage boxes were photos. Some we took, some have been given to us, and others just appeared. Among the piles and piles of photos and negatives were party pics from college. My lovely bride and I attended a lot of these parties by the looks of it. We have pictures with old friends, people we've lost track of, and nights we no longer remember. So many things happened at those parties, and once we stopped telling the stories we lost track of the details.

Sometimes we lost track of the details as the party was happening. This is where the Picture Man Party Picture people came in. They roamed through the party and took snaps. You would see the flash here and there all night, some posed, some not. A few days after the party, the photo sheets would be posted in student center. You would rifle through the photos and put in an order. A week or so later a package would arrive with your selections. Good fun.

As you might imagine, I didn't buy very many of these photos. I invested in things important to me at the time, like food and beer. My future bride, however, grabbed them all. She's like that.

I remember one of the pics she has in her vault. It's a picture of me with a giant man who would go on to become a Chicago PD detective. (of course, we had no idea where we'd end up at the time) In it, we have an arm around each other and are holding these giant plastic steins of beer. The hand I have behind him is up near his head. Since photos have a way of flattening the pic, it looks like I'm tenderly touching his ear. Its distracting. At the time my bride to be ordered it, both he and I were like, "we don't like that."

Little did we know that 30 short years later I simply highlight my stray hand and, bleep boop, the tender caress is gone. Bam. Now your eye is drawn to what should stand out. Things like, wow, that guy next to Greg has a big head. Does Greg have a haircut like that guy in "No Country for Old Men?" Why are they hugging those giant plastic cups?

In October of 2045 the grandchild will be about the same age I am there. I wonder if he'll have long hair too?