Last year, talking to a businesswoman at an event, in Lisbon, she told me the following:
“Some clients don’t understand my work. They come up with strange objections. They create friction and make the whole negotiation process difficult and painful. I’ve been spending my time having coffees with a lot of people here in Lisbon, but haven’t closed any deals, so far.”
Her concerns were legitimate.
As an independent consultant selling is like oxygen. It’s a matter of survival.
She was doing the right thing: investing her time in networking events, meetings ☕️, online conferences, dinners, and others occasions aiming at selling her service.
The problem was the outcome wasn’t proportional to the effort she made.
Something was wrong.
Not only that. The money she spent on those activities, aiming at getting new clients was starting to add up: transport, buying business professional clothing, paying for dinners, bottles of wine, flight tickets, coffee for clients, you name it.
The truth is, the need to pay the bills combined with the fear of rejection brings a negative tension to the table (AKA meetings, events, etc) and, as a result, makes us act in a hasty and anxious way.
I know that because this was part of my life for a long time.
Like the woman from the story above, I was applying sales techniques and doing my best to close deals. It was useless.
I remember going to meetings, where after 45 minutes the person would leave by saying: “It was lovely meeting you Savio, thanks for the coffee, I’ll think about it and get back to you…”
Needless to say, I’m still waiting for most of these people today.
This is a lesson I learned the hard way:
If we only start building trust when we’re already in front of the customer, we have already lost.
Clients are humans and humans are highly attuned social animals. Our brain, more specifically our limbic system, is constantly looking to avoid danger.
Clients in general are sensitive to the slight sign of danger.
In the context of business, danger can mean lots of things:
Our competence and ability to deliver a good job are being questioned 24/7, either explicitly or silently.
So, if we try to sell our work without having built trust first, we’re setting ourselves up for failure.
The best analogy is the person who “proposes marriage on the first date”.
It’s not going to happen.
As an independent consultant, there’s something more important than learning sales techniques.
I call it building a reputation.
Conventional sales techniques don’t work anymore because the world has changed. We live in a world where transparency, clear communication, and authenticity are 1000 times more important than trying to convince anyone to buy from us.
The goal of this article is to draw your attention to one skill because it will help you build your reputation authentically.
One single ability that will put you ahead of most people.
I’m talking about writing.
From a sales perspective, we usually approach people and try to convince them to buy from us. This might work.
In fact, it still works. But it’s becoming less and less effective these days.
On the other hand, when you show your work through your writing, your ideal audience has the chance to taste it. To almost test-drive it.
That’s when the magic happens.
Think about these three facts below:
1. A few years ago, someone who’s highly regarded as the number one communication skills coach in Australia, out of the blue, invited me to work with him.
2. This year, I was invited to work as a strategic advisor for 3 global communities.
3. Recently, the biggest coworking space chain in Portugal invited me to give a talk about Brand Storytelling to their members.
If this is a big deal or not, all depends on your interpretation, but here’s what’s interesting about these 3 facts:
I didn’t contact any of these companies. I didn’t send them emails or tried to sell my services to them. I didn’t even ask common friends to make an introduction.
So how in the world they came after me?
My assumption is that there was a story being told in their minds before we even met.
The story is that I was the ideal person to solve their problems (AKA help them with their projects or ventures).
They told themselves that story because they read my articles. They all mentioned this.
And before you think articles are dead, ask yourself what made you click on the headline and read 900 words so far.
That’s right, words have power.
Stop trying to convince people to buy from you. Start inviting them to participate in a Story. Donald Miller.
Having the ability to write will help you to get there.
Writing will help you with articles (obviously), but also with video scripts, sales scripts, conversations, and speeches, to organize your ideas logically and apply it in pretty much any other form of communication.
I write every day. I don’t post every day. But when I post, my articles go on LinkedIn and Medium.
There's a catch, though.
There’s a type of writing that instead of building your reputation, will in reality destroy it — I’m talking about commercial copywriting, where the readers feel they’re being manipulated or forced to keep reading.
The type of copywriting where the writer overpromises and under delivers, where toxic headlines make any sensible person turn up their nose from miles.
That’s not what I’m into. And I wouldn't advise you to go down that path.
My recommendation is that your writing provide value to your reader / customer in a number if ways:
3. Tell an authentic story that shares with them what you believe in;
4. And most importantly: solve a problem for them.
My articles on LinkedIn have been attracting qualified clients and encouraging them to request meetings with me, every week.
I can guarantee you, these clients come to these meetings with a much more receptive and open state of mind than the people who were talking to the woman in the first paragraph of this article.
When it comes time to meet face-to-face with these potential clients, they’ve already done most of the heavy lifting — convinced themselves I am an asset for them — So, it’s time to shift our focus to "how" we’re going to work together, instead of considering “if” we should work together.
If you’re interested in writing articles, you can schedule a discovery session with me where I can share a methodology to help you organise your writing process. This methodology can assist you in easily writing one article per week to generate leads to your business.
Thanks for reading this far.
I truly hope this article helped you see your influence power through different lenses.
Take care!
