Are you pushing the right amount for your business growth? We've all been on the receiving end of people working really hard to try to grow their businesses. It's all with the best of intentions.
What often happens is we hear from people trying to sell us stuff who say things like:
Hey, I'd love to meet with you.
Can we schedule a time next Tuesday at 2 pm?
Can we schedule time tomorrow?
Is there time on your calendar today at 1 pm, because I want to talk to you about this amazing thing for your business?
However, doing this presents a challenge. The people we're reaching out to, and the people who are reaching out to us, don't yet know whether or not they have any need for what it is that we offer.
So one of the things that we have to think about is this notion once again of how hard are we pushing for business. There's a fine line with the balance between sitting back eating bonbons on the couch and calling people so often that it becomes offensive. So how can you tell if you're pushing the right amount of growth in your business?
Let's use a medical metaphor. If you're someone who's just pitching a treatment, recognize that very often your patient doesn't realize that they have a condition that requires that treatment.
If they don't realize that they have the condition, then all you are at that point is someone trying to sell snake oil. Let's face it. It would be like someone saying to you: "Oh, listen, we have the absolute best treatment for tennis elbow. And in fact, your insurance will cover completely, the recovery is really quick, we give you all the drugs you might want. It's phenomenal!"
The only problem is you're talking to people who don't necessarily believe that they have tennis elbow. You could be the world's foremost authority on tennis elbow.
Just from the way they type back to you in a message, you might be convinced that they do in fact, have tennis elbow. However, unless they believe they have tennis elbow, it just doesn't matter. This is something we need to recognize right away.
How do we make it so that people are receptive to our message? Well, if I was selling, tennis elbow treatment, what I wouldn't say is: "Oh, do you need tennis elbow treatment?"
Because anybody who believes they have tennis elbow, probably already has multiple alternatives to get treated. Instead, what I want to do is describe the symptoms that someone might be facing when they have tennis elbow.
I might want to explain the consequences of not treating that condition and what can happen long term. Then what happens is people say: "Oh, you know what, I think I have those same types of conditions. I think I have those same symptoms, which might mean that I have tennis elbow."
Then they now understand that they may need help with fixing this problem and that's where the business growth happens on your end.
When you reach out to an individual on, on LinkedIn, social media or any other medium, you want to communicate the specific types of problems you solve really well. You may say something like:
"Do you know of one or two people who might be facing those challenges, because we're really good at fixing those? I just don't know if your organization or other organizations are facing those problems. If you do have those challenges, I'd love to talk to you to see if we can help."
Sadly, only about half the people we talk to who are facing those challenges end up being people who are a good fit for how we approach things.
In the notion of same side selling, the idea is that we don't ever want to be seen as someone who's there to sell. We want to be someone who's there to solve.
That may sound like a subtle difference, but the idea is that always showing up to solve instead of sell is a pretty powerful model for business. If you had a doctor who identified a serious condition for you, that doctor would be someone that you would be waiting for them to prescribe the treatment for that condition.
But sadly, too often, we don't end up having that dialogue. So to determine whether you're pushing too much for business growth, look at it on a scale of 1 to 10.
One is we are entirely pushing trying to convince the client to buy our stuff. And 10 is our client is convincing us they have a problem worth solving. They are hopeful that we have a treatment for that problem. Ultimately, your goal is to be as close to 10 as possible.
Try to make sure that you almost never come across as the person on the other extreme. This is the type of person where you can tell they're trying to sell something and you instantly don't trust them.
The other day someone reached out to me on LinkedIn and said they'd love to talk to me about my services. We have a whole sales organization and we help people craft their message and reach out in a sales environment because we know that people like you are uncomfortable having sales conversations. You would think that once they saw 'same side selling', that they might conclude that I wouldn't be a good person to reach out to, but they don't care.
What do you think my impression is of their organization? If I had a client who needed their services, do you think I'd recommend them? Not a chance in the world.
Again, you have to determine whether you're showing up to see or to solve. Rest assured, if you show up as someone who is there to sell, you're usually not going to sell very well at all.
If instead, you show up as someone who's there to solve, then you might actually have a better result of that. Now, how do you figure that out? Well, we actually developed an assessment and associated scorecard at SameSideSellingAcademy.com.
Just answer a series of questions and it gives you a scorecard performance back that says how well you are operating from the same side versus triggering an adversarial trap.
Of course, we're going to publish the results of this, this isn't a secret. It's not some kind of convoluted marketing scheme. It's just we want to know where people fall and then we'll be able to give people a perspective that can help everyone gauge where they're at.
It takes about 5 minutes max to complete this scorecard. I hope you'll join me there so feel free to make any comments below this post regarding your thoughts on pushing for business growth.
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