Don’t Be “That Guy”: The Power of Genuine Curiosity
The following post was written by my good friend Isaac Vogel, who owns a successful painting company. I appreciate the simple, actionable, relevant guidance here for anyone in any role.
I’ve spent most of my career in sales and I always bristle a bit when I tell people I’m in “sales” or when a customer calls me the “sales guy.” The reason I bristle is pretty simple. All of us have had experiences dealing with a “sales guy.”
You know the one…The guy who says, “I’m really not supposed to do this, but for YOU, I’ll make an exception this once,” or the gal who fabricates urgency by telling you that “the offer is only good until the end of the day!” The last thing any of us wants to be is “that guy.”
How do we avoid that while also successfully selling our ideas?
The first step is intimately understanding what it is that makes what you’re offering compelling.
How do you gain this understanding? You commit to learning why. Know your value, know the market, know the desires of others.
Chances are, there are some common traits among your customers. Let’s say you’re selling to runners. You know runners wear running shoes. But how do you know what’s most compelling to certain runners?
You get — and you STAY — curious.
For example, nowadays, so many running shoes you see are hot pink, fluorescent orange, or neon green. Be curious about why. You might say to yourself, “A lot of runners I know are a little nuts. Why would they ever want to put themselves through that agony?”
As a runner myself, I sort of revel in this characterization, and bright/gaudy shoes help me communicate this to others without saying a single word. It’s the same reason a lot of runners put a 26.2 decal in their car window. Running is part of their identity — it’s what they want you to know about them. The best way to learn this is to spend some time with runners, or to pay attention. Go watch. Or better yet, run a marathon! I can just about guarantee you’ll see more clearly what compels runners.
While it’s fairly obvious how you can do this with consumer goods like shoes, you might be wondering how you can get curious about something mundane or technical, like, say…furnace filters. The same principles apply. Consider why different people buy furnace filters. Some customers may be like me — they buy the cheapest furnace filters they can find. I don’t have bad seasonal allergies and I don’t pay super close attention to my energy bills, so those things don’t play a role in my decision-making process. On the other hand, there are plenty of folks who buy their furnace filters with those motivating factors in mind.
Both scenarios provide opportunities to learn more about an individual, and both can provide valuable context, which is what distinguishes transactions from relationships.
In a transactional sale, you won’t bother to inquire about the motivating factors of your customer. You’ll instead focus on how your product or service is the right thing for everybody. While you may believe that, and you may be even right a lot of the time, it isn’t based on the expressed motivations of the customer, which can only be authentically gleaned from being genuinely curious.
A relational sale is one where, upon revelation of a personality attribute or personal motive, you seize the opportunity to establish authentic rapport. I do balk a little bit at the notion of “seizing the opportunity,” though, because even that implies that the goal is to advance your own motive. Instead, the goal of curiosity can be as simple as the desire to learn more about another person, independent of any outcome whatsoever.
Most people want to feel known, and, yes, even a furnace filter can provide context to learn more about somebody. Even after writing that ridiculous sentence, it strikes me as absolutely incredible. People almost always appreciate when others are genuinely curious.
It’s also how you’ll avoid being “that guy” as you sell your idea, product or service.
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