Sunday, September 28, 2008

Experts

Sometimes top people in organisations try to do it all by themselves.

I worked with an MD recently who has presided over four consecutive years’ losses. He had three ineffectual co directors and refused to listen or take advice from them or anyone else. He is one of those people that can speak strongly and authoritatively about things that he knows very little about, such as marketing strategy. He had recently masterminded a disastrous premises move, whilst at the same time allowing an almost total lack of financial control.

Nido Quebein, the author, speaker and consultant extraordinaire was speaking at a convention in Florida. One of the two and a half thousand delegates asked him the question, “If you had your time all over again, what would you do differently?”

He answered, “I would go to, and pay, experts sooner”

So why hadn’t my client actually gone to anyone before now? Well it could be due to a lack of self esteem, it could be a sort of “I know best” arrogance, or maybe he just didn’t trust anyone.

We all have to look for and develop relationships based upon trust if we are going to grow and develop.

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Saturday, September 06, 2008

Hot and cold

When you speak as an expert in your field, you will tend to polarise the audience.

I was watching one of the top international speakers at a convention recently. This person is renowned for really inspiring business delegates. As the 45 minute keynote progressed I noticed one or two people with folded arms looking distinctly underwhelmed. At the opposite end of the scale, the majority of the audience were obviously hanging on every word.

When you are trying to understand a principle always use an easy example, my father used to say. So maybe this polarisation that is evident when watching most speakers, also happens with our potential customers, whatever the business is.

Some are not interested, whatever we do and some are indifferent to us. They could go either way. However there are others, for whatever reasons, tangible and intangible, that love us to bits.

Let’s really concentrate on finding these customers and love them too.

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