My friend Tim is a managing partner of a financial planning practice, and for several years has been coaching a younger manager, Lisa, to take over their practice one day. A few weeks ago, Tim called me about helping Lisa with her closing skills. He didn’t feel like Lisa had the same capabilities that he had in winning new clients and would struggle being the face of the practice. After reminding Tim that we don’t specialize in financial services, I invited him to breakfast to talk though the situation and give him some free advice … if he paid😊.
During breakfast, Tim shared several examples of him intervening to close business for Lisa. After about 30 minutes, I stopped paying attention to Lisa’s role and started to realize that Tim was a selling machine. I’ve known him since first grade, and I know he doesn’t lie – at least not to me. So, I asked him when he became Gordon Gekko. He laughed – really hard – and then intently looked at me and said: “Man, it just started recently. I don’t know, maybe it’s just now clicking for me after all these years.”
I veered away from Lisa and started asking deeper questions about this transformation. Although they shared business development responsibilities, Tim leaned more on the operations side of the business and his partner Kevin was the always the rainmaker. How was he a pretty good salesperson at age 40 but a master at 52? I wasn’t satisfied with “it’s just now clicking”. We talked about his production in his 20s, 30s, 40s, and now. He ramped up in his 20s, was productive with slight growth through his 30s and 40s, but now business is flowing in at exponential rates. Why?
Did he adopt a new approach? No.
Were they offering different products? No.
Was he pursuing different types of clients? No.
Do clients see him differently now that his practice was bought by an institutional bank two years ago? No. In fact, being independent seemed to be more of a benefit to his clients.
Then he said it. The magic words. The reason we both now believe he is performing a gazillion time better today than he was a few years ago…
“You know the weirdest thing about this? I don’t give a shit anymore. We got our cash. I’ve got three more years and then I’m good, and so are my kids. It’s almost like the less I care about new business, the more I get.”
“That’s it!” I proclaimed. “That’s why you’re performing so well, and Lisa isn’t. She’s scared to lose. You don’t care if you win or lose. Your high-wealth clients can sense that from a mile away.”
He agreed. We developed a plan to take the pressure off Lisa, so she wasn’t tied like a knot on every interaction with potential clients.
Ok, so how can you act like you don’t care? That’s the challenge – it can’t be an act. You’ve got to be sincere. You can start with language by asking permission instead of demanding your value. For example, say something like “After learning more about us, do you think it makes sense to schedule a site walk?” instead of “We’re the most qualified to provide this solution. Let’s schedule a site walk.” Once you get comfortable with that type of discussion, then your confidence will grow and you’ll realize that you can guide your customers, you don’t have to force them. Slowly, you’ll stop caring about winning every customer and you’ll win more of the right customers. Then, you’ll take on a confidence that is magnetic to others.
If you’re a manager, take some pressure off of your people? Before resenting that advice, ask yourself how well the pressure is working? If you’re selling solutions to complex problems, then you probably have responsible people working for you who don’t need pressure to perform.
Think about it. How many times did you push away someone you were attracted to because you cared too much? How many putts did you miss because it meant too much to you? How many sales have you lost because you came on too strong? Try it. Don’t stop caring about your customer but stop caring too much about winning a sale… and then watch the sales come in!
