God, I was embarrassed. It was a rookie mistake.
A few weeks ago I got a call from a large real estate company in New York. Janice, the leader of a large group of brokers, said they needed help in face-to-face meetings with clients. For some reason, their wins were down. Could I come to their office and talk about what I do?
Janice said that the meeting could be two people or ten: she had little control over their attendance. She also said that it might be a good idea if I started by asking them what they needed or wanted in a training program.
Since I was uncertain about what to expect at the meeting, I decided to put together a little talk about the importance of presentation, tell them a bit about myself, and then give them a thirty-thousand foot overview of the principles and practices of highly effective speeches and presentations.
Big mistake, because that was nowhere near what they do.
But since I didn’t know that, when the room finally filled up and Janice introduced me, I jumped into my pitch about the power of really good presentations. I waxed eloquent for a couple of minutes, and began to feel the audience drifting away.
A young woman spoke up. “Sims, you’re missing the mark. We don’t give presentations. We engage with our clients. It’s more of a conversation than a scripted talk.”
“Okay,” I said. “Sorry about that. Tell me what you’re looking for.” But I sensed that I had lost their trust, and lost the opportunity.
Another guy jumped in, “We work in pairs with clients looking for commercial space. If the client is not interested, we keep hunting for something that fits the clients’ needs. And when we do find a location that the client likes, we prepare a pitch book and hammer out a deal face-to-face with the client, the landlord and/or the owner.”
“So it’s like private equity,” I chimed in, trying to demonstrate that I was familiar with similar sales practices. “You sit down and go through a pitch book.”
“Well, yes and no,” he said. “We have a pitch book, but we need to have a conversation with the client before we start boring them with a pitchbook. We’ve got to connect with them.”
I will stop here. You have to realize that I’ve been selling myself and my services to professional people for almost 25 years. I have helped dozens of hedge funds and private equity firms raise capital with pitch books, and I’ve helped develop a few pitch books for more mainstream financial advisors. But for some reason I forgot what I have always known: Get them to talk first.
Everyone was polite, but I knew Janice was disappointed. Afterall, she had suggested that I ask them what they were looking for. For some stupid reason, I whiffed.
Lessons learned
So here’s the lesson learned.
Get them to talk first.
Listen to what they say.
Ask lots of questions.
Try to understand their needs.
If you don’t understand, go back to asking and listening.
And when you do understand, demonstrate your understanding by framing what you heard them say, paint a picture of what you can do for them, and make a commitment.
I hang my head in shame, and live to fight another day.