I’ve been meaning to start blogging again, with the promise of staying consistently consistent, and reading MPI’s “future of the meetings industry” forced me into it.
It was a post about the EMEC speaker (I won’t say who it is here but he is most definitely a Gen X’er) based on his action photo. He was quoted as saying:
“So much of our daily work in modern organizations is virtual—email, teleconferences, social networks—that physical, human connection is becoming more important than it ever was.”
Hellooooo! That is exactly what John Naisbitt wrote about in 1982 in Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (which can be purchased now for $1.01 on Amazon!).
Here is what the blurb says for his 1999 book called: High Tech, High Touch:
“In a High Tech world with an increasing search for balance, High Touch will be the key to differentiate products and services. “Focusing on the effects of technology in reshaping society, the book brings together a mountain of evidence implicating
technology in relentlessly accelerating our lives and stirring profound yearnings for a more emotionally satisfying existence.”
But no, this isn’t an advertisement for Naisbitt. It is to say that the concept of Emotional Authenticity is and has been the key to Sales Success and Life Success for all time.
The better you can communicate your authentic desire to help your buyer feel (emotionally) safe and smart working with you, the better you can help them envision their authentic and emotionally satisfying outcome, the more you will sell.
The change we should be talking about today, to me, is not high tech, high touch. That has stayed the same. The change is that our products and services – what we offer – has become less important than how we communicate what we offer.
The insights we bring to our buyers and the emotionally satisfying – genuine through and through (caring more about their success than even making the sale!) – make more of a difference today than a bell or whistle or three.
Tim Sanders also got it right years ago with his book, Love is the Killer App, when he said:
“Those of us who use love as a point of differentiation in business will separate ourselves from our competitors just as world-class distance runners separate themselves from the rest of the pack trailing behind them.”
Further, he wrote:
“When you represent knowledge, oportunity, selflessness, and intimacy, you are not just a service provider or a product. You are fun, you are interesting, you are valuable; you take people places they have never been before, you show them books they have never heard of, you introduce them to people they never dreamed they would meet — in short, you are the equivalent of a human theme park.”
You want to sell more?
1. Love them more.
2. Demonstrate emotional authenticity.
3. Be a theme park 😉
Voila!
