Recently, I was asked to reflect on my career and describe why I thought I was successful in the roles that I held and the path that I had taken. It’s an interesting question that could be answered in a number of ways, focusing on the environments that I was a part of, the skills and education that I received or the people that surrounded me and supported my growth. But the more and more I thought about what was at the core of this question and what could be distilled down to anyone in any industry, I thought of one thing that was literally at the foundation of everything that I did.
I suppose I am naturally curious. Not nosey or intrusive, but literally curious.
I believe that it is that curiosity that comes from a real interest in people that has helped me be successful in everything I’ve done. When I was in media sales, this curiosity helped me to learn about each of my prospective clients. I not only would learn about their products or services, their markets and competition, but also their philosophies and what made them start their businesses in the first place. I learned that passion for solving a problem was at the core of many of my client’s businesses. I learned that some were looking for flexibility in their work/life and they started their businesses in order to have more control of their lives. I learned that some of my clients had built businesses that would be come their personal legacies and that that was their overall personal goals. I also learned that some business owners were driven by that need to prove their own self worth and derived a great deal of their identities from what they did.
Now, learning all of this from each of my clients was the way that I could develop a real connection with each of them. Building that connection proved to be the difference in whether I got the business or my competitor would get the business from these clients. I know for a fact that when it came time to choose between the media I represented or my competition, when all things were equal, I often got the business because of the connection I was able to build.
Here comes the kicker! People see through the ‘act of relationship building’ when it doesn’t come from a natural place. So if you use ‘relationship building’ as a strategy, I’m not sure how successful you’ll become. It’s almost as if, you need to be curious and ask questions from a place where you don’t care if you get the order or not. Your mindset needs to be that you’re truly interested, with absolutely no ulterior motive. Sometimes this is the toughest thing, when you’ve got looming sales targets or quotas to meet. So where to start??
How about the ancient act of having a conversation? Maybe this act is becoming a little rarified but I vote we start teaching it, learning more about it and perfect the art of it. Here’s how it starts; I’ll ask you something that I’m curious about, you then answer and ask me something that you’re curious about, and so on and so on. At the end of it, we’ve both learned something and in the meantime, we’ve begun to build a relationship that in grounded in a connection.
I’m proud of the client service teams that I’ve had the honor of working with and I have to say that at the core of these great teams was the goal to learn more about each client, listen more then you talk and ask questions that you’re really curious about.