Leading Entrepreneurship

One of the most important pieces of advice a coach can give to a professional sales person is this: a competitive advantage is a coax, not a club.

One of the most basic mistakes an entrepreneur or sales person can make is diminishing their value completely by announcing it dramatically to everyone they meet. I personally had a run-in with one of these product narcissists recently. The conversation went a little something like this:

Me: “So, what do you do for a living?”

Him: “Do you know __________ that you find in offices everywhere?”

Me: “Of course.”

Him: “Yeah, those are crap, offices should have my stuff. Our stuff is so much better.”

Me: “Ok, that’s great…”

Him: “So where do you work? Not the business, the building.”

Me: “Oh, well the Port Authority Building downtown on the waterfront.”

Him: “You all don’t have my stuff yet. Give me your business card so I can hunt you down later.”

Now I know what you are thinking - “I’ve bought from that guy before!” And we all have, unfortunately. However, I will go out of my way to avoid these types.

Unquestionably the best sales people I’ve ever met have never had to tell me why their product has value or what their firm’s competitive advantage is. They just simply appear, live the advantage, and disappear. They are smart, but always listen first.

And most importantly, they know that the most important question of all is not the question they ask of me. It is the one that I ask of them. Not just any question though, the question.

The question is the one asked of me to them when I figure out that they are different, unique or better. It is when I ask them why that is.

This question is so critical because it is the question that informs the salesperson that I have already sold myself.

Unfortunately for us, getting to that question takes time, talent and skill.

So, I urge those of you with that talent and skill to help share with us your techniques for building your level of patience in the comments section below.