Show Me, Don't Tell Me

In Trust-Based Selling, Charles Green (who co-authored The Trusted Advisor with David Maister), titles Chapter 7 (pp. 70—74), "Sell by Doing, Not by Telling," and relates the following story:

The "Chief Counsel of a Fortune 50 company" needed to hire outside counsel for a critical project.  Starting with a dozen firms, they narrowed the selection to three finalists, each of whom they invited in for a 90-minute presentation:  "The first two were very good; they had solid expertise, industry knowledge, and had done their homework.  Then came firm three."

They said:  "Look, we only have 90 minutes with you.  We can do our standard capabilities presentation—which we're happy to do, by the way—or we can try something different.  We'd like to suggest that we get started on the project with you right here, right now.  After 85 minutes, we'll stop, and you'll have first-hand experience of what it's actually like to work with us."

Agreeing to the exercise, what do you suppose the corporate team found? 

Competence, to be sure:  That much was "quickly clear."  But here's the valuable, differentiating part:

"As we worked with them, we got to know them better; instead of giving answers to questions, we had a dialogue. [...]  They came to listen and to work, and to show their smarts in real time, on our issues, not to report on theirs.  You just felt you could trust them."

What firm three was up to (and yes, for the record, they won the assignment hands-down) was capitalizing on the fact that buying a complex service involves two steps, which are too often confused:  First is screening and only then is selection. 

Screening is fairly mechanical, and done at a distance:  It's establishing that your firm has the "table stakes" to play.  Here, reputation within the industry, a personal recommendation from a well-placed individual, or even a highly informative and intuitively navigable website may be all you need to get to the next round.

But once you're in front of the potential client, you're into selection, which operates under different psychological rules:  They already assume you can get the job done from a technical and professional perspective, now it's time for you to demonstrate ("doing not telling") how you would apply your skills to the potential client's specific issues. 

Until you reach the selection stage, your expertise is, to be sure, germane, but it's also abstract.  "German engineering" is one thing; a test drive is another.  Offer the potential client a test drive.  Demonstrate that you're willing to stick your neck out, take a risk that they might not like what you can actually do, and take a chance on collaboration.  Make the abstract tangible.

We are all tempted, in offering our services, to over-rate the importance of expertise.  After all, we've all made tremendous investments in training, professional development, mastery of our micro-practice specialties, and so on.  And we've been rewarded for our deep grasp of technical fundamentals.

Reinforcing our temptation to focus on degrees, credentials, and past triumphs is, often, the potential client themselves, who—even if they're not sure how to evaluate the answers—will often ask technical questions because they think they "should," that it's the responsible way to make a decision.

But it's really about trust, about rapport, about establishing a relationship grounded in jointly exploring solutions to the issues at hand.  And the quality of your performance in that context is not any thing you can assert; it's something you can only display.

So next time, be firm three.  What do you have to be afraid of?