Last night my wife and I attended a fundraiser dinner for a local charity. Afterwards, she was saying goodbye to some friends while I waited with some other folks at the valet queue. The couple standing next to me looked vaguely familiar, so I asked them if they had gone to my college. They hadn't, but we ended up chatting for a bit about the event, kids, schools and Disney. My wife joined us and we talked for a few more minutes before our car pulled up.
As we drove away, my wife asked me from where I knew those people. She was surprised to find out I had just met them. "People like me," I teased her. I was thinking about it today, though, and I don't really imagine I am any more likeable than anyone else, but I do have a willingness to engage strangers in conversation.
I don't put much conscious thought into it, so you could say it comes naturally to me. But for a lot of people- including sales professionals- approaching strangers is a daunting proposition. There are a ton of books, videos and websites devoted to helping men and women initiate conversations (e.g. "pick-up lines"). These tips are all within the context of dating. Similarly, there are a slew of instructional aids for "elevator pitches", public speaking and sales, generally. I have found there is not much material available for simple conversational techniques that are not within the scope of some particular activity... and I think that's a shame.
If we offered more training to people on how to communicate generally, in completely non-threatening, non-pressure situations, then when folks did need to "step it up", whether to attract a mate or a client, they would have a solid, functioning base of knowledge and experience from which to operate. Perhaps this lack of foundation is one of the reasons that dating and sales is so hard. Societally, we may take it for granted that we are all comfortable communicating on a basic level. For those of us in the sales industry, in particular, it might be worth a moment of self-assessment to double-check our own communication "foundations." Then, if we're not 100% confident, we can work on ourselves from the ground up. By doing so, we avoid the perhaps mistaken assumption that we can master advanced techniques before we've mastered elementary skills.
At Obbee, we've mastered the fine art of sales leads. We use proprietary internet-based tools to provide prospect lists for salespeople in the real estate, insurance (home & health), mortgage, debt settlement and loan modification fields. We can even match up clients with professionals in real time. And since our leads are qualified and motivated, talking to them will be easy. :)
- Dave
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