Mountains of Arizona
Partly Cloudy 90 Degrees
3:37 p.m.
I have a very simple process for dealing with prospective clients.
I’m happy to gift them my time on the phone to discuss their business. I’m even happy to gift them, on occasion, a thorough review of what they’re doing and then “dream out” what I see and suggest a way forward.
But after that, I’m done.
I’m not trying to sell them because I’d never work with someone I had to sell. So I don’t.
So if they don’t come after me, it’s over. I keep going. It doesn’t matter what they say they’re going to do, I don’t even pay attention to it.
Maybe they come back in a week or a month or a year. I don’t care.
My train goes forward. It’s a big world and there are billions of people in it.
It kind of reminds me of Bill Bonner’s (of Agora fame) negotiation strategy as revealed my Mark Ford. He’ll ask the other party what they think is fair in a negotiation. If the party responds with something fair, he’ll work with them. If the other party responds with something that is obviously not fair, not only will he not work with them on that particular deal, he’ll NEVER work with them.
I wish I had known to do this 16 years ago when I started working with clients. I could have saved myself an enormous amount of frustration.
But most people are not secure enough to tell the truth…prospective clients included. That’s why they make up lies. It’s not malicious, it’s just human.
“Call you next week. Will follow-up after we look at this. Going out of town for a few weeks and will get with you when I return.”
Right.
I used to say that with an attitude because I thought it was ridiculous that people did this. But that’s back when I was looking for something from those people. I wanted to “win the sale.” I wanted to “close the deal.”
These days, that’s not the case.
YOU are the gold.
But the world will only believe it when you show them that you believe it first.