How To Engage Your Audience?
Engaging with new customers has always reminded me of a fine musician approaching an new piece of music or composition, there is a delicate balance of forces, energies and expectations. Add to that the fact that these stem from and impact multiple participants in the process, the musician, the composer and the consultation.
Playing the role of the musician is the sales professional. He has to balance his knowledge of the market, product and selling with the fact that he does not want to push the prospect or over sell. As a result a fantastic challenge a rep has is to first master each of the above, if he is weak in any of the above, the balance cannot be achieved and you have a terrible engagement and sale. Often this is the case, some reps have strong product knowledge, but lack vital sales skills, which alienates the buyer, and causes the engagement to either go terrible, or the sale to take much longer than it should. We always tell sales people and sales leaders that sales is a lot like music in that you need to master the basics, just eight notes, before you can be fantastic. Even Charlie Parker and Ian Anderson had to learn those before they could wail and improvise like they do.
Even after the musician/seller has honed his skills, for both a never ending process, they need to sit down and learn each piece, interpret it with in the confines of the composer’s first, and then set out a plot. The plot needs then to be executed, and reviewed, and revised, and repeated.
The other huge business that links excellent musicians and excellent sales professionals is practice, practice and more practice. This is one of the real things that separate fantastic sales people, their willingness, in fact need to practice, get better and not rest on their laurels. Always adding to their repertoire, i.e. new prospects – new clients – new genres.
Playing the role of the composer is the company and sales organization. They like the composer have specific vision and expectations from the music, read product, and the sales person. Consider revenue targets, market share, company image/reputation, and more. While these might be easily communicated, but alas, unless you play the piece yourself, it is always open to interpretation, by the musician and the consultation. Small of doing it doing/playing it themselves, they need to ensure that there is a proper and evolving sales process in house, visibly documented, a sheet music, so that improvisation is restricted to those things that add to the sale rather than detract from it.
Finally the role of the consultation is left to the buyer, looking to be entertained, but not always apparent on what they want. Even when they know which music the want to or need to hear, they have choice, sometimes too much choice, which may lead to confusion or just a resignation to stick to what they know: the reputation quo.
So as the illumination dim, the excitement builds as the sales professional takes the stage and starts the process of making the balance, the dynamic tension that when performed properly not only entertains, but draws the consultation in, involves them in a mutual vision with the player and the composer. When the balance is struck, the crescendo leads to an equally fantastic experience for all three participants. You know, on a excellent night Frank Zappa could have sold me whatever business.