A warm day in Granada, bustling streets, beautiful people.
I step onto a zebra crossing and see a girl on her hands and knees, middle of the road, frantically reaching left and right. Just outside of her reach: her eyeglasses.
I’m about to move towards her and help, when someone else quickly bends over, grabs them, and puts them in her hand.
A random act of service. Beautiful. I smile and carry on my way.
Oh sure, you can call it an act of kindness, and it certainly is.
But really, that’s euphemising a beautiful quality of humanity:
The ability to serve others. Which, incidentally, is also what a healthy business does (and please: don’t say you ‘service’ clients. They’re not cars).
Serving is one of the most important things we can do in life, because it does what every single spiritual tradition, all sages throughout history, and most philosophers recommend:
Put ‘other’ before ‘self’.
Now, all this is well and good. We can commit random acts of service at any moment.
Helping a kid with their homework. Cooking that special meal for your lover. Helping a charity with your skills. Giving someone that car you don’t actually use, when theirs breaks down.
All very nice for the ethically inclined, for those who care about others and their well-being.
But what if…
What if you could apply this – the attitude and intent of serving – to the very act of turning a stranger into a customer – apply service to the process of selling?
What, in effect, if you’d make the sales conversation an act of service?
I hope that this notion blows your mind, at least a little.
Because when your intent is to serve a potential buyer inside of the conversation, all kinds of good things happen.
They’ll trust you more, they’ll share more about their painpoints and their doubts, they give you permission to follow up, and, yes, they’ll be far more likely to buy from you.
Why?
Because when you serve a prospect, the clear message is that your only interest is for them to make the best possible decision for them, at this point.
Even if – ESPECIALLY IF – that decision is to not buy from you.
Think about it: why would you ever want someone’s purchase, if that purchase isn’t perfectly right for them?
Serve your buyers. It’ll grow your sales and your revenue.
Cheers,
Martin
