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David Maister is one of the smartest
business thinkers I've come across, especially when providing
insights into running professional services firms.
These two sentences, written twenty years ago, are worth reading
and re-reading:
"The single most important talent in selling professional
services is the ability to understand the purchasing process (not
the sales process) from a client's perspective. The better a
professional can learn to think like a client, the easier it will
be to do and say the correct things to get hired."
Genius. Stop trying to sell people what you've got: start
understanding what they want - and the key triggers to enabling
them to make an easy purchase decision.
Many professionals object to being 'sold to' - especially if the
salesman appears to be unscrupulous or seems to have a poor grasp
on the fit between his offering and your needs. I don't like being
sold to, but I do enjoy having information presented to me in an
intellectually and emotionally compelling manner. I want to make
informed choices and appoint providers accordingly.
Professional transactions are relational in nature. People
expect technical competence, but they buy into people.
"Above all, what I, and the client, am looking for is that rare
professional who has both technical skill and a sincere desire to
be helpful, to work with both me and my problem. The key is empathy
- the ability to enter my world and see it through my eyes."
Hat tip to Christian May at Baker & Partners for first
introducing me to Maister.
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