Seoul, Korea, 1999.
An auditorium full of men is glaring at me with suspicion.
They all work at the Coca-Cola bottling plant, and I’ve just flown in from corporate to tell them how to improve their business.
They don’t want to hear from me. They don’t want to be in a boring meeting. They are sure that everyone from corporate is full of baloney and knows ZERO about their businesses.
They’re not wrong.
People at corporate are pretty clueless about what really goes on at bottlers. And they have haughty attitudes and think they are much smarter, while bottlers think corporates are theoretical snobs who have nothing practical or actionable to offer.
I have a little secret to share with these cynical guys who are already itching to leave. I begin:
“I know what you’re thinking.”
I’m pretty sure I heard someone coughing, “B.S.!” into his fist.
“You’re thinking, ‘Oh, here we go with corporate flying in to tell us what we need to know about our business.’”
It gets a little quieter.
“You’re thinking, ‘Here comes another new campaign and a presentation based on ‘research’ that tells us things we already know about our customers.’” There were some smiles and a few guys sat up straighter.
“I know this because I just moved from the bottler to corporate a couple years ago.” [gasps] “And we always thought those things.”
Then I got brutally honest and talked about the problems they were having.
When I walked off the stage 40 minutes later my colleague David rushed up to me and gushed, “That was amazing!” … as if I’d levitated or made the chairs disappear.
Why do you think David was so beside himself? He’d seen people from corporate present all the time.
He’d just never seen anyone tell the truth. :)
Did you know that the quickest path to credibility and trust is sometimes brutal honesty?
The bottlers knew I knew their world. I knew their problems and challenges – and not in theory. I had lived it and told them so.
What about you and your potential clients?
When you stand before them – literally or virtually – do you speak to them in their language?
Do you describe their issues and challenges so specifically that they KNOW you know their world?
The funny thing about it is –
When you talk with potential clients about their issues and challenges and describe them with precise details and insider knowledge ….
They presume you also know how to solve them.
They bestow respect, credibility and trust on you. They believe you!
You can do it – I show you how during my free training: Discover How to Get Perfect Clients to Say “OMG, I Need to Work with You!”.
Note: It isn’t required that you actually ARE one of them, as I was for the bottlers. It helps, of course, to share your story about why you serve them with your audience.
But the most important part is to know deeply – and be honest about clearly describing – the issues and challenges they are going through.
Let me show you the best way to do this during my free training: Discover How to Get Perfect Clients to Say “OMG, I Need to Work with You!”
In this training workshop you’ll discover:
- EXACTLY what to say to have perfect clients reaching for your card in seconds
- The 4 WORST ways to talk about what you do that drive away clients and drive DOWN your prices!
- The ingenious, time-saving tool that practically writes your website, presentations and marketing materials for you
- How to go from self-intro to “OMG, I need to work with you!” with messages that explain your full value without any icky selling
