“He’s such a prat Paul!”

“He’s such a prat Paul!” Chris explained with a certain pressure in his voice.

“Whatever I do, he’s just not interested! He’s on his phone, on his computer and blatantly not listening to me! To be honest it's only because I have to do business with him that I am there in the first place!”

I turned to the rest of the group, “Does anyone else here do business with this client?”

“I do...” Sarah answered

“How do you find him Sarah?”

“A challenge, I mean, sure holding his attention is an issue. It's funny because last time I was with him I started out by saying he looked great! In fairness to him, he has lost a pile of weight over the past year!”

“How did that go with him?” I asked.

“Great, he immediately started telling me how great he felt in himself and how he had loads more energy! In fact, we spent the first 10 minutes of the meeting discussing this and we then struck an awesome deal! Much better that I was expecting!”

I have long firmly believed that hugely successful sales professionals get to to the top of their game by 'serving' at a high level! So what does, 'serving' mean?

In my experience of training sales professionals, almost all of them in the beginning of the training assume that 'serving' means 'giving away too much of a good deal'.

That’s just not true!

Serving, is really focusing and delivering on your client’s deepest desires! In sales we call this 'wants and needs', right?

But, don’t limit yourself to just what your product or service will deliver them. That’s plain stupid! You’ve just cut yourself out of the equation!

I have news for you, it’s just as much about you! We all buy from people we like and trust!

I bet you have bought something from a friend just to support them even if you knew the product wasn’t great! To really serve at a high level you need to be in the moment with your client asking some empowering questions such as,

How can I really deliver what they want and need in this moment? How can I light up their life in this moment? How can I make this process fun? How can I serve them better?

Take Chris’ challenging client, what did he need in that moment at the beginning of the meeting?

Sarah shows us that all the client needed in that moment was just a compliment, a recognition of you’ve done great and full respect to you! Don’t fall into the trap at the beginning of the meeting of just focusing on you and launch straight into your sales presentation!

If you haven’t got your clients attention, they are just simply focused elsewhere in that moment. If you continue to your sales presentation, you will just lose them as you haven’t given them the time of day. Because it's all about your sale, your deal, your commission, your targets! They will either consciously or unconsciously ask themselves, “What about me?”

It's critical that you build trust with your client by serving them in the moment and then you can ask for their attention to focus on your sales presentation / offer / deal.Your client will be thinking, “I can trust this person, they have my best interests at heart not their own. Okay what have they got to show me?”

One of the sub-sections of my Ultimate Sales & Influence System™ is The S.C.R.E.A.M Attention Formula™.

There are 6 parts to this formula that you could use in any moment - the letter C stands for COMPLIMENT. Meaning you could, if appropriate, pay your client a sincere and honest compliment. That’s what Sarah did when she complimented the client about his weight!

She wasn’t flattering or flirting with him, she simply gave him what he needed in that moment of time. She served him, she recognised his efforts! Consequently, she grabbed his attention and they completed a great deal!

If you’re a guy reading this, you maybe sitting there thinking, 'Paul, that’s great but I’m a guy, how can I compliment another man like that?!'

I say, 'Get over yourself! You can respect another guy by giving him a genuine compliment for his efforts'.

So what about Chris?

I turned to Chris, “So Chris, were you focused on serving your client or yourself in that meeting?”

“Me, I guess, I just don’t feel he respects me?”

“Interesting, do you respect him?”

“No way, he’s a prat!”

“So you want him to respect you but you’re not prepared to turn up and respect him, how does that work?”

“Hhhmmm... I guess it doesn’t!”

In that moment Chris got it! Chris had arrived to the meeting focusing on just himself and not serving his client!

So, how about you?

When you meet your clients are you focused on them or you? Are you truly there to serve?

To your ultimate success,

One life...live it!

Paul :)