New York Lawyers Success Blog

Jeff Nischwitz is an entrepreneur, business builder, leader and lawyer. He has a knack for different thinking.

Jeff talks about a recent experience and his thoughts about business relationship building…

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Recently, I had an experience (unfortunately not too uncommon) that confirmed to me that the business world is still not on track in terms of its approach to business development and sales. I was on my way to a meeting and was initially pleasantly surprised that a woman sitting in the waiting/reception area looked up and said hello and asked my name. Unfortunately, this is conversation that followed:

Woman: “What do you do?”

Jeff: “I’m a coach, speaker, and trainer works with businesses and individuals on relationship building. I help people and organizations learn how to build genuine and authentic relationships whether it’s with their clients, among team members within an organization or in the sales process. What’s your story?”

Woman: “I’m an agent with [not to be named Insurance].”

Jeff: “I know a few people at [not to be named Insurance].”

Woman: “Are you represented by an [not to be named Insurance] agent?”

Jeff: “No; I have an agent at another company.”

Woman: “Why don’t you work with [not to be named Insurance]? Our insurance products are the best products out there.”

And so on…

A while back I wrote an article titled Have You Earned the Right, which discusses the need to earn the right through relationship building, which includes earning the right to make a sales pitch. Clearly, this woman had not earned the right, but rather felt compelled to within thirty seconds ask her qualifying questions, some positioning statements and then the direct ask. Can you guess how this approach made me feel? Did it make me want to learn more about her and the insurance company or less? What did this conversation tell me about this woman’s approach to business development and sales? What did this conversation tell me about the insurance company? I think you all know the answers.

This is why the old model of selling simply doesn’t work. In fact, I’m not sure it ever did work, other than being a pure numbers game.

Do you know anyone that would enjoy being subjected to this direct and pushy sales approach? I wonder if the world ever really want to be treated this way and was this merely a part of an aggressive sales process and approach that has nothing to do with relationships?

This woman didn’t know me, and she certainly didn’t know my financial needs, yet she was compelled to immediately begin touting her company’s insurance’s products as the “best” available and even questioning me as to why I was not working with this insurance already. This woman had not earned the right, and I became more convinced that we not only need to shift to a relationship-building approach to business development and sales, but we actually need to create a relationship revolution.

It has been said that positive and great change only comes in the midst of hardship, turmoil and through some form of revolution. It appears that it’s going to take a relationship revolution to bring about the fundamental shift that’s needed not only to allow each of us to be free from aggressive and intrusive sales tactics, but to allow people and organizations to achieve the results they want. Every day I see more and more proof that transactional selling is not only intrusive, but it does not really work. Years ago sales was all about building relationships, and it’s time to make that fundamental shift back to a relationship-based approach to doing business.

Do you agree? Tell us what you think? Do you want to sell like this woman or be part of the relationship revolution?

To learn more about Jeff’s work, go to ThinkAgainCoaching .