Helping lawyers with one to one marketing, client retention, and leadership

HOME    Introduction    Selling Emotional Junk   Retaining Clients    Psychology of Trust    Contact    About

PointBlank #1

Selling Junk or Securing New Business?
 

Today we ask the question, “Are you a junk salesman?”

ere is what William S. Burroughs (the popular, experimental author of The Naked Lunch) had to say on the topic: Junk is the ultimate merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise, he degrades and simplifies the client.

Ask yourself, what is MY junk and what role does it play in my business development meetings? Have an answer?

Lawyers too often try and sell accomplishments, credentials, big wins and notable appointments, and ... meanwhile, your prospective client, who has heard it all a million times before, is insulted because she knows at an implicit level that you are selling her the junk. Your self absorption is losing you new business on a minute by minute basis. He or she doesn't want your junk, they just want to know,

1. Is this somebody I can like?
2. Is this somebody I can have a relationship with
3. Is this somebody I can trust to be there for me when I reach out?
4. Is this somebody who understands my business and demonstrates a sincere interest in learning more?

In other words, you are selling the GC at Corporation X yourself. This is why I have termed my practice Coaching from the Inside Out.

In practical terms, this means you turn your attention away from yourself, and show your interest in the world your prospective client lives in.

You take the position that you have already secured the business, and are meeting in order to find out what the problems are and how you can help.

Once you do that, you have stopped selling junk, and started building a strong, productive relationship.

top

Next time: Selling Emotional Junk

Jim Dolan
The PointBlank Newsletter
dolan.james@sbcglobal.net