I watched Shallow Hal over the weekend. If you’ve not seen this movie, it’s about a guy (jack Black) who is extremely shallow and only looks at the exterior beauty of women. One day he undergoes hypnosis and suddenly sees only the inner beauty of women. The essence of the movie is a lesson about looking beyond face value – in this case the face value of a person - to see what’s really inside, what makes up that person.
The movie was endearing, but what was really cool was watching the credits, which most people dismiss. The credits of this movie include not only the names of all the costumers, key grips, technicians, makeup artists, drivers, and the like, but also photos of them while making the movie.
What’s so unique about this? It’s because you never see it. The stars of the show are typically the only contributors to the movie that get much credit. In fact, after the cast list, the rest of the credits typically run as quickly as possible with names and roles in five-point type. The credits of Shallow Hal, though, offered a separate screen for anywhere from four to twenty people, along with individual and group pictures. The makers of the movie really “walked the talk,” in that they showed those involved beyond the face value of the film, those helped make the film what it is.
How many times are we “Shallow Hal” with our prospects and customers? So often we default to the face value of our customers and this can lead to three mistakes:
- We may too quickly accept a customer that’s not a good fit because we just need to sell something.
- We may miss their pain altogether and jump to a solution that doesn’t even come close to meeting their needs…and we both lose.
- They may have a lot more business that we simply don’t identify because we’ve not taken the time to uncover it.
In all of the above situations, if we had only probed a little more, and explored what was under the surface, we could avoid unpleasant outcomes. What may be under that surface may be something not so appetizing – or it may be beautiful – but how will we know unless we take the time to find out?
The next time you’re with a prospect or customer, make sure you’re asking the right questions to uncover the real issues that are troubling them. Here are six hints to get there:
- Ask open-ended questions. Yes and no questions don’t give you enough information..ask questions that prompt stories and elaboration.
- Similar to #1, engage your contact into conversation about their situation.
- Actively listen. Put all of your attention on that moment and that conversation.
- Don't assume you know what your contact means by something he says. Instead, ask clarifying questions.
- Recap what you've heard and continue to ask for clarification of any indefinite words like "a little," "somewhat," or even words like "slow" or "soon."
- Refrain from trying to offer premature solutions. In fact, you may not offer a solution at all during this discovery meeting. That’s OK…taking time to think through the situation and offer solution options that are relevant will make a much better impression than a quick idea that misses its target.
Take a lesson from “Shallow Hal” and its producers. Find out what’s beyond face value.
jkl
