One of the nice things about sales people is we have tremendous passion about whatever it is we sell. We believe in our products, we cannot imagine anyone not being as enthusiastic as we are–or selecting an alternative solution. It’s impossible to imagine a sales person being successful without being excited about what we well.
Entrepreneurs are similar, they are people driven by an unstoppable passion for what they are building. They can’t imagine anything other than their product or service. This passion and drive is exciting and contagious. Their whole lives are consumed with the products they create.
This passion is critical to entrepreneurs and sales people. It’s what sustains us when we meet obstacles or difficulties. It’s what drives us to put in long hours, doing whatever it takes to succeed. At the same time, this passion has the potential to blind us. Without a customer, all of it is meaningless — that is if we want to make a living from the products/services we create and sell. And here’s the difficult part–our customers don’t care!
Our customers don’t care about our products, they don’t share our passion or excitement. Our customers care about themselves–their businesses, the products they build and sell. They are excited and passionate about what they do and make, not what we do.
This is the great disconnect sales people and entrepreneurs have with customers. We focus on what we are excited about and not what drives our customers. Until we understand what drives our customers–their passions, their dreams, their challenges; we will never be able to infect them with the passion we have for our products and services.
The conversation always has to start with the customer. Once we understand what drives them, we can position our products and services in a way that helps them achieve their goals. Only once we’ve demonstrated how what we sell and create helps them, then they can start so share the excitement we have in our products. But their excitement is always focused on how the products help them achieve their goals.
Passion is important to both sales people and entrepreneurs. The passion that is most critical to our success is our customers’ passions. Do you understand what drives them and how what you sell and create helps them achieve their goals?
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