USING THE HIGH PAYOFF PERSONAL TOUCH WITH CUSTOMERS

© 2008 Linda Feinholz.

When was the last time you looked in the mirror, really looked, and saw how you show up for your customers?

I ask because it’s been a subject that has come up repeatedly for my coaching clients, my MasterMind buddies, and myself the past couple of months. We’ve faced how we were showing up, and changed our results as we made an important shift.

My client Susan serves the legal community… as a marketing consultant. Her personality is very different than that of her clients. And her expertise at increasing their presence in the marketplace is what they need, what they want, but what they are uncomfortable spending time or money on.

One of my MasterMind buddies, Bonnie, is a career coach. For years she’s helped people forced into career transitions to take a fresh look at their capabilities. And then she teaches them to use specific interviewing techniques that have their next employer clamoring to bring them on board.

And as for me? Well, I came out of the world of mega corporations and work with a diverse group of professionals and business owners who want to grow their business, while doing it easier and faster. My expertise is in getting people crystal clear about their goals, getting all their distractions handled and out of their way, and sharpening their attention on their High Payoff Activities.

Each of us faced the same challenge: How to differentiate ourselves from others saying they produce great results for our clients.

The single spark that changed our own results is stepping into our authentic selves and connecting with our clients from that place.

For Susan, that means showing up as a bright, successful professional woman, and modeling the very marketing activities she’s asking her clients to invest in. The marketing activities at professional conferences, the artful and eye-catching way she distributes articles and tip sheets, the way she gets herself quoted in the media are all models of the High Payoff results she’ll create for her clients.

Susan models how to inject a personal flavor in professional marketing so her clients can trust how they’ll show up as well. Susan shows them how to preserve their own personality while building their professional presence.

For Bonnie, her relaxed personality blended with all her expertise are a perfect style for working with the younger generation, just as they enter the work force. She invites them to grow a powerful sense of themselves, and teaches them how to navigate finding their first jobs and any employment changes they make next.

Bonnie coaches her clients into new skills in connecting with their own personality so they practice them, use them adopt them in their interactions the rest of their lives.

And for me, my ideal clients all share a common characteristic - they are ‘doers’ challenged with stepping out of the ‘doing’ and into the leadership and management activities that feel constraining to them. Each of them is afraid of disappearing as person and becoming a robot if they focus on ‘management.’

I show them how to preserve their drive and individual style while connecting with and leading the people who now need to be the team that achieves their vision.

You don’t have to wait until your clients signal you to take step into your own authentic self. The fact is for Susan, Bonnie, and me, the moment we allowed ourselves to just show up, as we are, our clients relaxed and stepped up too!

So here are 3 High Payoff Steps that bring your authentic self into your business:

Greet everyone with a SMILE

People cannot connect with you or listen to you if you’re just a ’suit’ sitting across from them. Your clients are stressed and feel vulnerable. They want you to solve that stress AND reassure them it will happen with ease. If you’re not smiling, you’re in your head rather than in your heart. And the person sitting across from you knows your attention isn’t on them and their challenges. Your smile instantly lets them know your attention is on them, and they’ll relax and breathe.

Focus first on THEIR issue, not your solution

You’re already an expert. You already know one, or six, or even twenty ways to solve their challenges. The more you focus on probing how they understand what needs solving, the more natural your conversation with them will be. And immediately your true personality can come into the conversation so they see you, in your own unique brilliance. And your individual personality, added to your proven ‘Know How’ is what will cement the relationship.

Champion the result THEY want

Our greatest gift is in helping people succeed on their journey. Yet our greatest challenge in life is to help others along the road they want to travel, rather than the path we’d take “if we were in their shoes.”

So take a look in the mirror and see how you’re showing up. When you use these three steps your clients will be begging for more of you. Now that’s further, faster and easier, isn’t it?

January 19, 2008 | Filed Under Ideas, Inspiration 

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