BRX Pro Tip: People Buy What it Does
Stone Payton : And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Stone Payton, Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, talk a little bit about what people are really buying when they choose to do business with you, especially in the professional services arena.
Lee Kantor: Yeah. I think that a lot of times people kind of – I don’t know if they get confused or they forget, but, you know, if you’re in professional services, you’re not selling, you know, an Excel spreadsheet with some numbers on it. And that’s what a lot of people think that they’re delivering is just, you know, some facts and figures or some analysis or some recommendations. But that’s really at the heart of it, not what your clients are buying. They’re not buying that thing you think you’re selling. They’re buying a result that the thing you’re selling is going to give them at the end of the day.
Lee Kantor: When I was in college, they always gave the example, and in fact, they demonstrated it in a really dramatic manner, they would – I had a professor hold up a drill in a class of like 300 people, and he said – he held this up and he goes – he was saying that people don’t buy drills because they like drills. And then, he took the drill and drilled the hole in the podium. And he said, “They buy drills because it helps them get holes.” And that’s really at the heart of it. You’re not buying a drill because you like collecting hardware. You’re buying a drill because you need a hole somewhere, and the drill is going to get you that hole somewhere.
Lee Kantor: And it’s the same thing with your professional services. You might think you’re selling consulting or, in our case, we’re selling, you know, radio shows or podcasts or things like that, but we’re not. We’re not doing that. You know, when people say they want even a podcast or they want AI or they want any of these new technologies, social media, you have to ask them why they want those things because they don’t want those things just to have those things. They want those things because they’re trying to get some other thing. And you’ve got to get to the heart of what is that other thing.
Lee Kantor: You know, somebody may not want to share with us because they want a show. They want a show with us because they want to be an authority, or they want to generate revenue from content, or they want to meet hard-to-reach people. That’s really at the heart of the why they’re hiring us to do the thing that we do. And people on the surface may not even be aware of that. You know, they may think that they want the thing you have, but they really don’t want the thing they have. They want some outcome that they desire. And they’re hoping that the thing you have will get them closer to that outcome.
Lee Kantor: So you really have to dig deep when you’re dealing with the prospect or talking to people around the thing that you do, because a lot of times they think they want the thing you do, but they really don’t. And the thing that you do may not even be a fit for them, you know, and it might not be a good situation down the road if they go down that path because they thought they wanted the thing you had, but they really didn’t. So ask more questions, dig deeper, and find out what the outcome that this prospect really desires and see if you’re a fit to deliver it.
