Do you ever find yourself feeling like this lately?  I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtKT0lwHNKo

With the effects of the “Economic Downturn” still impacting business for agencies across the country, it’s easy to get into super-salesman mode.  You know how it goes, clients all collectively tighten their belts at once and we start to panic.   And then start to sell.  “We’ll get you on Facebook!  We’ll reach new customers!  We’ll go global!  Dear God don’t stop spending money!”  We start giving reasons why we’re such a big deal and explaining what exactly that smell is in our office, it’s mahogany by the way.  I catch myself feeling like I did in the middle of a bad junior high breakup.

And it’s natural.  It’s the fight or flight instinct in us kicking in.  But it’s not the best approach.  In times like these, we need to go back to the first lesson in Selling 101 – Listening.  Instead of coming up with a plan to fix all your client’s problems, spend that time drilling down on what the problems are exactly.  This is when all the effort you spent building your relationship with the client pays off.  Go listen to them – their fears, their goals, their ideas.  If they want to change things up, great, maybe it’s an opportunity.  One of my accounts told me they wanted to cut ad spending in half and I about choked on my coffee. But after an hour of listening and asking questions to understand their motivations, we came up with a plan that has the possibility to grow our business with them.

So talk to your clients.  Find out their needs and see how you can help.  Resist the urge to sell yourself and force yourself to listen.

Ryan Neely/Account Exec

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 10:30 am and is filed under Inside TSF. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.