In most tender pitches, an average hopeful contractor stands before the decision makers and will do one of 2 things:

1. Re-present the highlights of their tender documents – as though the audience has not read them*
2. Go all salesy. They try and sell you the benefits of choosing them over anyone else.

Those that stand out take a different approach. They take an educational approach to their pitch. Instead of selling or repeating the tender documents they set out to educate their audience. They use an educational structure, educational techniques and deliver from an educational perspective.

This has 3 advantages:

1. They are not like everyone else
2. The audience doesn’t feel sold to
3. and it positions them as an authority in the partnership.

With your next pitch aim to educate and not to sell.

Cheers

Darren

*The best example that you see of this is when you see the speaker introduce themselves to the audience – even when they have been speaking about the pitch for 12 months!

You can get the full details on my latest presentation skills training course here.

Despite the bad wrap it gets, Jargon* is an essential part of the workplace. Without it communication would take far too long.

There are three objectives of Jargon:

Objective 1 – Define the tribe
Those who are part of the tribe understand the jargon. If your not part of the tribe you don’t need to understand the message. The converse of this is true too. If you don’t understand the jargon you’re not part of the tribe.

Objective 2 – Increase the speed
A good TLA^ will reduce the time to deliver your message. OH&S is much quicker and easier to say than Occupational Health and Safety.

Objective 3 – Deliver the message.
Every community and culture has a language that is unique to them. Its Jargon are the agreed words that community uses to share their message.

The problem with Jargon is usually found around the defining of who is in the tribe. Fix how you induct people into the tribe and you’ll fix the problem of jargon**.

Cheers

Darren

*Jargon and Management speak are different things. Management speak are cliches and motherhood statements that sound impressive and don’t mean anything when examined. (e.g. we must be efficient and effective!) Management Speak is to be avoided at all times.

^TLA – Three letter acronym.

**I once worked for a government department who issued an edict that we were to eliminate jargon from the workplace. After trying for 30 minutes we gave up on it. It was just to hard to communicate.

Presentation Skills Training Melbourne & Sydney

Learn how to beat the nerves and speak with confidence.

Full details here

Despite thousands of years of trying, we are not able to predict the future of non-standard events with any certainty. I’m pretty confident that the sun will rise on December 1, but over the same time frame we have no reliable way to predict what the price of petrol will be.

It’s the same when sharing an idea, pitching for a contract or selling your services. We have no logical way to know what will be happening 12 months from now. We hope we know, we trick ourselves into thinking we know but we do not. No one does. Any belief that we have is based solely in emotions – not logic.

Pitching therefore cannot rely on logic to win. You must elicit emotions if you want to get across the line first.

Would love your thoughts on this.

Cheers

Authenticity has two sides to it – to yourself and to what others expect from you or your position. If you get this right work is easy and challenges are welcomed. If you get it wrong you’re in a world of pain.

• If you’re authentic to yourself but not to your role you are a misfit – the conductor with a rock band.
• If you are authentic to your role but not yourself you are hollow – you’re living someone else’s life
• If you’re not authentic to yourself nor your position you are dying – every day is drudgery and hard work.
• When you are authentic to yourself and your role you operate in flow. You’re doing what you were put on this earth to do.

Realising that you are potentially in the wrong box can be painful and take a while to admit. But those who are authentic to both themselves and their role are easy to follow, easy to work with and easy to live with.

How is your authenticity going?

Cheers

Darren

One of my childhood hero’s was/is Dr. Karl (Kruszelnicki). He understands and can explain just about anything from microbial disorders through to problems with inter-planetary travel. When he can’t answer a question he openly says, ‘I don’t know!’

One of his mantras is, ‘The Nobel Prize for Science is not given out for the answers scientists give but for the questions they ask’. Knowing what question to ask and what ones to avoid changes everything. Asking the same old questions sends you down the same old path as every other scientist. Those who stand out ask different questions and get different answers.

In my program Better Positioning, Deeper Conversations, More Sales I will show you how to go beyond asking the normal basic questions that every sales person asks. I’ll show you how to dig deeper, challenge assumptions and uncover the issues that clients will buy on. When you can dig deeper in a different way you stand apart from your competition. This helps you offer greater value to your customer.
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If you’d like to know how to ask better questions I’ll be focusing on it in the program Better Positioning, Deeper Conversations, More Sales. You can get all the details here.

Elon Musk (co-founder of PayPal, Tesla and Space X) is famous for how he treats sales people on their first sales call.

If a sales person spends time trying to build rapport he will kick them out of his office for wasting his time. He doesn’t want to discuss the weather, the local football team or anything else with a sales person. Why should he? He doesn’t care what a complete stranger thinks about such events!

He wants the sales person to lead the sales conversation and bring value to his business. He is too busy to waste time shooting the breeze.

This makes sense. Both parties are at the meeting for an agreed reason – that’s evidence of rapport.

Trying to ‘Build rapport’ on the first sales call shows that you are weak and looking for permission to be there. It’s why it always feels awkward and is no fun for anyone.

In my program Better Positioning, Deeper Conversations, More Sales I show sales people how to sell to without wasting time trying to build rapport. I show them how to assume rapport and demand response – even when in the client’s office.

The irony is that in the long run this approach gives you a stronger connection with the customer. In addition to this, you have a position of strength throughout the relationship – something that can be useful down the track.

But the trick to doing this starts well before you get to the customers door. It starts on the first contact.

If your sales team needs to control the sales conversation with greater authority, let me know by leaving your comments below and we can start a dialogue to improve how your sales team leads the sales conversation.

Cheers

Darren Fleming

Networking events are about engaging – not selling. To get engagement people need to find you interesting. This is where most people fail.

Being interesting should always be about them – not you. This is where the three levels of interest come to the fore.

• Interests – what you like.
• Interesting – judgments about what you do and don’t like.
• Interested – paying attention to what other people like.

People go to networking events and try to be interesting and this is the wrong approach. What interests you (your business, your football team your whatever) is usually of little interest to me. Why? Because I’m interested in my business, my football team and my whatever.

If you want me to see you as interesting, start by being interested. When I’ve told you all about what I find interesting two things will happen:

1. I’ll think you are very interesting (after all we talked about so many interesting things)
2. Without realising it will I’ll tell you want I want to buy.

Ask the right questions and people will tell you everything you ever wanted to know so you can sell to them when you have a business meeting (not a coffee) after the event.

Cheers

Darren Fleming

*This also works on dates. In fact I would say it is more important on dates!