Old School Connection

As many of you may have figured out, I tend to write in chunks and that's true. I usually don't force myself to write, like some professionals do. I usually take it as it comes to me. It's not like I make my living at this, it's more like I live to do this. Over the past few days I have been kinda lazy. Lazy in that I haven't done much physically, but I have been reading and doing some course work for school. 

 During the past few days I've been engaged in some reading and researching on modern sales techniques and strategies. Some of the things I've learned have been pretty interesting. For example, the idea now of engaging in conversation with the prospective client as a business owner yourself. So that you can communicate n a more even level letting that prospective client (fellow business owner) know you have a service that can help simplify their overall process. 

 This struck me as a very good idea in how to carry out prospecting. But at the same time this is how vendors coming into my grandfather's business worked anyway. Way back in the late 1960's & '70's while at my grandparents "mom & pop" store. Vendors would come in everyday and my granddad would shoot the breeze with them more than order products from them. To them it was having a conversation with an old friend more that a sales transaction. 

 When reading and listening to this material this weekend it brought back memories of watching this interaction. While at the same time making me wish for those times again. One of the many sad realities today is the lost art of conversation. It seems that carrying on a casual "chat" with someone somehow gets lost in translation between myself and other people. They sometimes just stare back at you clueless as to what you said. 

 Now I'm not going to sit here and blame all this on just the individual. Society and the world as a whole have gotten so use to instant everything from food, to information, to communications. We now live in an "OMG", "LOL", "TTYL" world. (As an added note, my spell checker did not try and correct any of those acronyms.) 

 So in the world of sales you have to also take some of these things to heart. That many of today's business owners are strapped for time and to try and pin them down is nearly an impossible task. So what I'm saying here is, the idea of relating to the business owner as a fellow business owner is a good idea. The key is to go into the conversation with a complete idea of what it is you're selling. Another important concept is think as if you're the person you're selling to, in other words, what questions would you ask. If you go into that business having rehearsed that in your mind. You can deflect whatever rejections they have on their mind. 

 While we trot along in this ever faster world, remember sometimes old school connecting works best.

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