You don’t have to look far or be part of too many conversations to know many people are dissatisfied with the state of the health care delivery system in America. This post isn’t going to turn into a rant on that all too commonly addressed topic, so if you are in sales, please read on.
The best sales performers realize that going to the doctor and making a sales call have a lot more in common than most people realize. At the core, one person has a problem and goes looking for another person to provide a solution. Whether you chase a lead or referral, or you get asked to come present the process is fundamentally the same. Don’t let how the process gets initiated throw you off, once the conversation starts both the doctor visit and the sales call are the same. And because of that we find the same complaints about the health care delivery system and lousy sales people sound very similar. Time wasted, not a real personalized interaction, lack of listening, same old prescription that failed last time the cost of the call was more than the value received; and the list goes on.
The doctor visits that we remember are the ones where the MD slowed down, didn’t rush us through the diagnosis step, asked us question about more than just the common symptoms and it was all done with a personal touch that was patient centered, not prescription or fee driven. We get the feeling that we are unique despite our illness being common.
The customers that become your lifelong customers and refer you to their best relationships are the ones that experience the same thing when you sell them in a personalized manner. It is not because you told them what a great value they’d receive if they bought your product or service. It’s not because you can tell them lots of other people think you have the right stuff. Frankly, that’s selling medicine, not treating the patient in front of you. The best calls are the ones where a deliberate, patient personal diagnostic interview takes place before you prescribe (or maybe don’t prescribe) your brand of medicine. The definition of malpractice is prescription before diagnosis, and malpractice happens far too often in our health care system and in the sale world.
Photo by Haley Lawrence on Unsplash
