Taste of the Book

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”  Carl Jung

Connect as people, not prospects.

When we seek to do business, something seems to happen in our heads which stops us behaving like normal human beings and starts us behaving like selfish, money-motivated idiots. In our rush to impress, in our hurry to use the begged, borrowed or stolen time we have managed to get with this person we are chasing, we cram in all the impressive things about us and our company at machine-gun speed and hope that something strikes a chord that will then lead on to business.

It won't.

If you regard getting the appointment at the key mission, you are missing the point. If you think that the mission is simply to get face time in front of your new business prospect, or keep them on the phone as long as possible, then you are in the wrong business. You are not in the business of effective new business acquisition. You are in the business of time-wasting.

This is a long game. It is not a short game. 

Slow the hell down. Take it easy. If you are in a rush to close a deal, you will fail. Instead, build the relationship. They are wrong in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather: it isn't ever 'strictly business, nothing personal'. Business is supremely personal and personal relationships take time to build. They start with kindness to strangers.