What if there was a checklist of things every email should contain. What if that checklist helped you in conversations with prospective customers, with peers, and with managers. What if that checklist made you more engaging and interesting because you brought value to those you talked with.
Maybe you are selling a product or an idea, or maybe you are building consensus in a team. It is always a good idea to talk from the other person’s point of view, and to bring value to the conversation. Maybe you have worked with people who talk a lot and never get to the point. There is a place for them in this world – they are the ones that seek a good experience for everyone, or at least for themselves. How do sell or promote with focus on the other person?
That’s the first item on the checklist: Keep focus on the customer, or the other person. It means you must think about them, their needs, and the outcomes they seek. You’ve all talked with people that never stop pushing who they are, what they’ve done, and what they have. After a while it gets tiresome. Tiresome because the conversation is so one sided. It’s important to shift the focus on the other person. It’s even more powerful if the other person can sell themselves on the idea or the product you have. This is just one item on the checklist, there are six more: each one as powerful as this one.
However, there are some limitations to the 7 Principles, and to the “Focus on the customer,” approach as well. You cannot be ridged about the principles; you have to apply them seamlessly and keep the ball moving. For example, you can give too much value and appear desperate. You may also focus so much on the customer that you never push back or disagree with anything they say – in which case you are pwned by your interlocutor, and they are now in charge of the conversation.
