During a baseball game recently, an aquaintance told me he recently became unemployed. His specialty is building exquisite homes. So it’s not surprising the economy of the housing market destroyed his ability to get new contracts.
I asked what he is up to now and discovered he’s doing handyman work. He also stressed if I needed anything done, to give him a call.
Of course I’d call him. But it occurred to me he wasn’t doing a good job of selling his expertise.
Let me explain. What is your highest level of expertise? And can you explain it to me in a provocative way so that I want to take action and hire you today?
We can get into elevator speeches and closing methods, but what it boils down to is putting pre-thought into your message.
Instead of making someone else brainstorm possible ways they could use our services, we need to do the thinking ahead of time so they don’t have to. And wrap it up into a nice pretty package with a big bow on top.
What if he said “recently, I’ve been rescuing homeowners from $5000+ roofing and siding repairs by applying a specialized gutter and storm drain solution that costs only $350.00″?
I probably would have hired him on the spot. But since he left it up to my imagination, I’ll just call him when something breaks or I need something painted.
Thinking is hard. Most people don’t want to do it. Especially in these tough times, thinking ahead and selling your expertise is the difference between winning the jobs you want versus getting whatever scraps other people can dream up.
– Brad Isaac
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