Start with being interested
Telephone call handlers are handling thousands of calls from customers at this very moment. 99% of them are boring.
We have sales people telling customers everything they know about their products. We have customers trying to have their needs understood. We have very little real communication.
What if you started with being interested?
What if you were keen to learn about your customers’ needs and asked them more questions? What if you were interested in providing the right solution only when you knew it fit the customers needs? What if your conversations were opportunities for transformation, not simply transactions?
We rarely ponder the more interesting option, because being boring is easier. Being boring is safer.
It’s safer to launch into a pre-approved, one-message-fits-all speech than it is to stop, ask questions, and attempt to understand a person’s needs. It’s easier to just tell people what you think they want to hear, than it is to listen for what they most want and need. It’s easier to stay distanced and keep up a “professional” demeanor than it is to be authentic and genuine.
We choose boring over interesting, and wonder why we look at the week’s worth ahead of us with dread, pining for the weekend just past while hopefully anticipating the weekend to come.
Being interested will make your weekdays feel like weekends. Try it and see.
Rod Solar is the Director of Practice Development Consulting of LiveseySolar, a healthcare marketing and sales training company. Rod has created successful and engaging training systems for over 25 years. His advice routinely generates 6-figure incremental increases in income for his clients by teaching them how to systematically improve customer service while increasing sales at the same time. His training offers an elegant (and fun) step-by-step conversational approach which benefits surgeons, practice managers, hospital staff, and non-medical staff working in private healthcare settings. Rod wrote and delivered the Business Development, Clinical Governance and Medicolegal Issues module for the University of Ulster’s Postgraduate Diploma in Cataract and Refractive Surgery (Theory) - PgDip. He is a regular presenter at the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeon’s Congress Practice Development Programme and has regularly published articles about healthcare marketing in The Ophthalmologist, Optician, European Ophthalmology News, Cataract & Refractive Surgery Today, Eurotimes and Independent Practitioner Today. Rod has been a professional salesperson (B2B and B2C), management consultant, college lecturer, an industry leader, and executive coach. His clients include Optegra, EuroEyes, ZEISS, Moorfields Private, London Vision Clinic, Thiele, and many other high-quality, private Ophthalmology clinics from the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, and the Middle East. Rod has a degree in Psychology and Human Performance from UBC. He lives in London, UK and you can follow him on Twitter: @rodsolar.
