Don’t Fill In the Blanks

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello, I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. When I interview a guest on the podcast that I host, my last question is always the same. I ask guests for their best contact information, whether it’s a website, social media channel, maybe a phone number, so that listeners interested in their services or their products know the best way to connect. Normally, that’s not a problem for my guest, even the most nervous ones. And then, there’s the guest who surprises you.

John Ray: [00:00:33] On one show, I had a guest who was the development director for a national chain, opening a location in the Alpharetta area where I live. He was on the show to promote a new location opening in the area. The whole interview was a bit painful. I couldn’t tell whether this guy was nervous or just a man of few words. At certain points, I felt like I was in a verbal struggle to wrest answers out of his mouth.

John Ray: [00:01:03] When we mercifully got to the end of the interview, I breathed a sigh of relief and asked my usual last question. He gave the website followed by silence. The website was for the national chain, not the local location about to open. I waited for a moment. I expected him to at least give a local phone number or something, anything which might make it easy for customers in the area to connect with this one new outlet he was promoting out of a large national chain. But that’s not what happened. It was just the website then crickets.

John Ray: [00:01:44] Well, trying to help out and fill in what I thought was a significant void, I looked at my show notes and I said, “Oh, and I see the phone number for those that would like to call is,” and I gave the phone number. “That’s my cell phone number,” he monotoned. Well, we edited that little snippet out later.

John Ray: [00:02:06] As professional services providers in conversations with our clients, sometimes we get anxious when we’re attempting to conduct a good value conversation to diagnose their needs, and hopes, and desires. We’re striving to make sure the client is a great fit for our practice and price based on the value that we deliver.

John Ray: [00:02:27] And sometimes we have a client who is reticent or maybe they’re busy. They think they already know what they want. And they believe that some of the questions you ask aren’t relevant or you’re just making conversation. They react by shutting down or trying to pivot the conversation to your solutions.

John Ray: [00:02:47] Instead of exercising a bit more patience or engaging the client from another direction which might yield the answers we’re looking for, we end our value conversation and move on. That’s a mistake. Instead of assuming I had the correct phone number, I should have asked my guest, “Do you have a phone number that our listeners here in the area can call for more information?” Instead of doing that, I made an assumption. I filled in the blank and I was dead wrong.

John Ray: [00:03:19] If you haven’t had a deep enough value conversation with a client, later on, when you’re crafting options to put in a proposal, you’ll make conjectures, some of which may be half right, some of which may be just flat out dead wrong. You’ll end up proposing solutions which may not fit the needs of the client, and you might lose a great engagement. You also might end up with a client who’s a bad fit for your practice. You might end up mispricing the engagement. There are a lot of bad things that can happen.

John Ray: [00:03:54] So, slow down and be patient. Always conduct a thorough value conversation. Don’t fill in the blanks.

John Ray: [00:04:04] I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. If you go to pricevaluejourney.com, you can sign up to receive updates on my upcoming book that will be released in the summer of 2023. It’s called The Price and Value Journey: Raising Your Confidence, Your Value and Your Prices Using the Generosity Mindset Method. You can also find a link to the show archive of this series and, of course, you can find the podcast on all the major podcast apps as well. If you’d like to connect with me directly, you can feel free to email me at john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.