Whether you're making a sale, asking for a referral or interviewing for a position, the people you work with are usually tuned to one station--WIIFM ("What's in it for me?").
"I'm not getting enough of the people I sit down with to hire me," Rick, a financial advisor, told me.
"I keep getting job interviews," Mara, a Call Center trainer who is a casualty of a recent merger, exclaimed, "but I don't get offers."
In both cases, I discovered the same problem:
They spent their time talking about their skills, their abilities and their experience, with too little of the time spent discussing what the prospective client and employer needed.
Rick was proud of-and spoke eloquently about--his licensing and certification, his list of prominent clients and his assets under management. Mara spoke about her accomplishment-packed resume.
"Be Impressed, Not Impressive," was one of Dale Carnegie's rules for successfully connecting with people, in his classic book, How To Win Friends and Influence People.
I suggested to Rick that he would do much better if he started his interview-and spent most of it-engaged in conversation about his prospects:
"I'd like to spend most of our time during this meeting finding out about you, if that's okay. I'm guessing you had something specific on your mind when we set up this appointment. Why don't we start with that?"
I suggested to Mara that she learn as much as she could about each company and their training departments before her appointments, and then ask them more about what they're doing as a company and what they were looking for in a trainer.
A few days later, I heard from both Rick and Mara. Rick landed a new client--a local doctor he had been hoping to work with. Mara received her first job offer.
Be Impressed, Not Impressive. Spend most of your time with someone making him or her feel that you're tuned into his or her station and you're bound to have better results.
They’re All Tuned to WIIFM - To learn more about this author, visit Sandy Schussel's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 |
Related Articles |
|
 They’re All Tuned to WIIFM
|
| |
Be Impressed, Not Impressive. Spend most of your time with someone making him or her feel that you're tuned into his or her station and you're bound to have better results.
|
|
Presentation Tip: Create a Storyboard that Sells
|
| |
Whether you're trying to persuade one person or a thousand, you need to grab attention, build value and close with something meaningful and exciting.
|
|
Motivate Your Team! Eight Quick Tips to Motivate for Success
|
| |
Motivation is the key ingredient for success in any organization. You can have all the technical skills in the world; however, if you can’t motivate your team, you will not achieve success. As a leader, a majority...
|
|
The Biggest Marketing Mistake & How You Can Avoid It
|
| |
Learn what you need to do to avoid the biggest marketing mistake.
|
|
Learning a New OS
|
| |
To allow my computers to communicate with each other my son said it would be better if they each had the same operating system (O/S to geeks). I was quite happy with Windows 98 on my desktop Dell, but my laptop has ...
|
 |
Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
|
The Evan Elite Authors program is currently in beta phase. For details please contact us.
|
|
|
Sandy Schussel
(Visit Sandy's Website)
Sandy Schussel, is the "More Clients"
Coach who went from being a rainmaker for
his law firm, to running his own seminar
business, to being hired as the national
sales training director of a financial
services brokerage. He is the author of
the acclaimed book, The High Diving Board:
How To Overcome Your Fears and Live Your
Dreams. Visit Sandy’s website at
BrassRingCoaching.com and sign up for his
free weekly e-letter, REACHING…
|
|
|
|
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
