I had drank four cups of coffee a week with potential clients and taking about one in four. Napkin's backward data I was holding showed my level of conversion from “Buying the conversation” to sign a new client was 27.59%.

Then it happened “it”. For nearly two months, no one bought anything – it was a desert of business development there. I learned later that I had contracted a bad case of what I like to call “commission spirit” (yes, it must be capitalized – it's an official sale disease). I had moved unconsciously to a place where I was more intended to separate potential customers from their money than to try to help them. I focused on the sale, not serving and they can smell it. As a result, I developed the “four footing”, and not long after, the “spirit of the commission” was a thing of the past.

I'm never trained to make sales. I didn't like it and I wanted to put all my energy in my existing customers service. But in my first business, it didn't take long to find out that I had to buy conversations in order to have clients. So, cups of coffee became a weekly activity for me.

Connected: Tips for Acyking Your Other Customer Meeting

Early, I was relieved to find a cure for the usual cold call in these “buying conversations” with the simple principle: SERVING – Don't sell. I learned how to stop “selling conversations” and flipping the script in “Buying conversations”, where I was no longer the sale, but the client was actively following me to buy.

For decades, I have embraced three principles of business development, and these eventually gave birth to what I call “foot commitments”.

1. Meet people where they are – Not where I want to be. Many sales tactics are built about attracting the potential client to join me “here”, mentally or emotionally, to see my product from my perspective. When we do the opposite and meet them where they They are, we gain confidence. Where are they they For now? Personally?
2. Ask to understand – not to understand. Listen and listen really first and listen more than to talk. If you want them to understand you, they need to know you first understand them. When they feel understood, they are much more likely to want to hear what you have to say.
3. Serve – do not sell. Their best interest should be served. Many times, what people want is not what they need, and selling them they want can fire over you and for them. When we first set the best long -term interests of the client, we serve them by directing them to what they need, even if it is not something we offer. Zig Ziglar was right: You will get what you want after you get your customers what they need.

“Walking Commitments”

With these three simple principles of buying in mind, over the years, I developed the habit of revising the four goals we finally called “walking engagements” because we have reached them as we walked in meetings with potential clients. I memorized them, and review them whenever I meet a potential client:

1. I intend to serve this person, not to sell it.
2. I will not talk about my business if they are not asked.
3. I intend to earn money from this meeting.
4. I will make an offer.

Connected: How do you win customers in any situation? You need to ask these questions.

In the first reading, it could seem easily as if you were committed to one or two of the “foot commitments” would make it impossible to engage others. Let's unpack them to find out that they are congruent:

I intend to serve – not to sell. No one wants to sell anything. I intend to discover what they need and offer them that, even if it is someone else's product or service. I am committed to doing what is best for them, not for our company. If both of our interests are lined up, excellent. If not, I will direct them to a product or service that truly meets their needs. It has to work for both, not just for me.

I will not talk about my business if they are not asked. – This sounds like financial suicide, right? But I have been committed to him for a few decades, and I am convinced if you stop talking about your business at a one2one meeting if you are not required, you will earn more customers. And we have to ask the complicated question: if you are in a 60-minute coffee cup and they never ask about me or my business, do I really want to do business with them?

I intend to earn money from this meeting. If I just want to serve and will not talk about my business if not asked, it is difficult to see how I will make money from this meeting. Please note, however, I didn't say I intended to earn money WITHIN this meeting, but on the contrary, I aimed to earn money BY this meeting.

I met a business owner, and learned in the first minutes that she and her husband had lost their grandfather for their 20th anniversary dinner that evening. Did she need my service now? No, she needed a grandfather. So I grabbed my husband, who gave us contacts, and we called around our neighborhood and found a grandfather. This lasted 20 minutes or more, and we don't have much time to get back to have a “purchase conversation”. But I still intended to earn money BY that meeting. And I did, making her the right offer.

I aim to make an offer. My offer was what he needed, not what he needed – a grandfather. I also offered to meet again, but we never did it. Eight months later, a business owner calls who needed help with her fast -growing business. She and I had a great working relationship for a long time. The woman was the sister of the woman who had lost her grandfather. I had kept all four walking engagements. I served by taking her to a grandfather and didn't talk about my business because she didn't come out in the context of solving her problem. I gave her an offer (a babagysh), and many months later, I made money BY that meeting, no WITHIN that meeting. This is not Vudu or mystical karma. You get what you intend, and reap what you sow.

The four “foot engagements” separate us from the sellers who have been taught the only successful conclusion of a meeting is to sell something. Convas my conviction that when focusing on relationships instead of transactions, we will always do better in the long run. I would love it if everyone who enters needed my services. And when they do not, I direct them for what they need because I know I will get what I need on the road.

If you memorize these “walking engagements”, as thousands of business owners have, they can make the whole change by walking in your next meeting, and they are a great way to ensure that you never have “commission breath” again.

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