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This blog is a merger between structured creativity and selling. There is a natural union between the two. Since 1993, I have been exploiting that union for myself and for my clients. This blog is perhaps just another iteration of that exploitation. It is a sales blog, but underpinning everything in it, is structured creativity. Mostly because everything I do professionally nowadays has structured creativity imbedded in it, based primarily on the Osborn Parnes Creative Problem Solving Model.
Structured creativity, put very simply, is the discipline of making long lists, and waiting until you’re done making a list before you choose the things you like from that list.
So, let’s begin with a list: a dozen things I (or you) might do or say in a sales meeting with a prospective client. We’ll start with the first three, and address them in ensuing posts.
Remember it’s your first time face to face with a new client. Are these things you think you would do or say at that meeting? Here are the first three to think about.
1) Ask..”What is your company’s overall strategy and what are the three biggest challenges or objectives that the strategy creates for you?”
2) Ask a question about a picture on their office wall.
3) Explain the three most common problems your product solves.
By the way, I have two objectives from a first meeting with a new prospective client. 1) I want them to think of me as a creative person that they would like to know (think Picasso), and 2) I’d like them to think of me as useful (like a country doctor). Those are my two objectives. Let me know what you think.
Tags: asking questions, authenticity, being of use, follow-up, improv, informal vs. formal, making lists, micro-marketing, someone you'd like to know, sourcing, status, Tin Men
