A few years back we were pitching to a large customer for a piece of work. This customer had a lot of problems and we spent two days listening to them pour their hearts out to us. Towards the end we identified a few specific things we would be able to improve for them in a major way and limited our commitments to that. As we were leaving, they thanked us for being the first vendor in a long time who really listened properly to them and didn’t just try to sell them a bunch of inappropriate software. Unsurprisingly, we still do a lot of business with them.

That meeting was brought to mind by Guy Kawasaki’s recent posting on The Art of Schmoozing. His third point in particular addresses how we have always sold our services: “Ask good questions and then shut up”. Keep it in mind the next time you want to get to the heart of a customer’s needs.

[tags]Schmoozing, Selling, Listening, Guy Kawasaki[/tags]