I’m not going to write a novel. But for prospective clients who get as far as these posts, know that I’ve been a small animal veterinarian since 1995. That job is useless without the ability to “sell” to my clients.
What should be the “easy sell” is very difficult: selling complicated Truth in a world of dubious and wary consumers.
I have to “sell” that I’m knowledgeable (true), that I care about their pet (absolutely), that I do empathize and am honest about their pocketbook and budget (true), that there are forks and 5-way intersections in a diagnostic map (yep), that there is a reasonable list of choices of what to test for, treat for, or attempt next.
My role as a veterinarian is to offer options based on my best judgement and experience. Then, while mentally compartmentalized as the owner of the business, still offer reasonable pricing with a fair markup… in the same sentence.
Speaking Truth still takes conviction, persuasion, and what can only be described as performance.
I’m taking decades of selling face to face, looking people right in the eyes at some of the most difficult hours of their lives sometimes, and offering to simply and happily be teaching about products, passing on information, narrating prose, or being a character in your story.
Personally Formative Pop-Culture Touchstones about Selling:
Alec Baldwin’s speech in Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet.
ABC. A, always. B, be. C, closing. Always be closing. Always be closing.
AIDA: Attention: Has my voice gotten your attention?
Interest: Is what I’m saying interesting to you? Is my presentation and the content exciting, intriguing, motivating, informative, impressive, and compelling?
Decision: Have you decided to go to the website? Will you follow the instructions for starting that fork-lift safely? Are you convinced my video game character is on your side? Is this the Voice of Your Sports Team? Are you certain that Walled*Market is your One Stop Shop for Summer?
Action: Type in the www dot now. Remember the game starts at 1pm this Saturday. Double-check the gears are in neutral and the parking brake is on. Get your butt to Walled*Market before all the hot dog forks and marshmallows are gone.
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Francisco d’Anconia’s “money speech” from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.
(Excerpts, as the whole speech is incredible.)
“Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men’s stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade—with reason, not force, as their final arbiter—it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability—and the degree of a man’s productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?”
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“Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss—the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery—that you must offer them values, not wounds—that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods.”
-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
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Opportunity Is Missed Because It Is Dressed in Overalls and Looks Like Work
–not Thomas Edison
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