Every business professional on the planet is faced with the daily temptation of relying on technology to get us to where we need to go, to engage in commerce, to market our products and services, and of course to communicate with others through texting, email, and phone calls.
This past Friday, I had the privilege of watching my son’s Advertising class from George Washington University present a campaign pitch to a group of judges as part of the National Student Advertising Competition in New York City. His GW team put in thousands of hours of work and presented one of eight amazing presentations that would advance the winner to the next round of the competition. The GWU team presentation was fantastic and their ideas which included an integrated strategy leveraging many different digital techniques was provocative and thought provoking. Unfortunately, they came up just a little short – 4th place – but as is the case with many learning assignments, the process and experience will stay with these students for the rest of their lives.
In the feedback and critique session, the judges shared some interesting insights that I found myself taking notes on because of their application to the corporate training and development world which I live in. Most of the feedback was on technique, tools, messaging, and marketing mix, but at the end of the feedback session one of the judges said something so profound that it took my breath away. In her summary of what all the teams did well and what they could improve upon she shared, “But the most important lesson of today is that no matter what digital solutions you propose, and no matter how slick your presentation, and no matter how well choreographed your presentation is, at the end of the day, people still but from people and you need to be genuine, authentic, believable, and caring about your customer.”
On the train home I started to think about recent experiences working with leaders where this profound statement could be applied and I realized very quickly that the application can be any were and any time you are interacting with others. Based on some research, observations, and our own experiences working with leaders over the past 25 years, I put together a list of three things we call can do every day to make sure that people still buy from people:
Really Put Your Self in the Shoes of the Other Person
It has to be more than talk; you have to make sure that you really understand the other person’s world and what drives them and what their true business needs are. It was never clearer to me why the Advantexe’s Strategic Business Selling program called “Walk a Mile in the Shoes of your Customer” is so popular. By “running” your customer’s business in a business simulation, you can learn to empathize with customers in a way that brings true value to the sales process.
Communicate to the Customer Solutions that Meet their Needs
Great ideas with poor communications and poor execution turns out to be nothing more than a bad idea. The feedback for all of the students in the competition was their communication skills need to be improved. I see the same thing in the corporate training world every day and the biggest piece of advice that I give is to make sure you are focusing on the customers, and more importantly, communicating the solution that meets their needs and not how great you and your solution is.
Be Human
Lost, but implied in the judge’s feedback about “people buying from people” was the need to be human. In this case, I am talking about being aware how you come across to others especially your customer. In 2018, nobody wants to be sold with a bunch of hocus pocus words like “transformative”, “disruptive”, “poor optics” and “networking across the time-space continuum.” Today, decision makers are bombarded by so many messages that the only thing that will truly cut through the clutter is authenticity, sincerity, and being human. Because after all, people still buy from people.