If you’re working in sales, what exactly are you trying to sell to your potential customers? l In their excellent book that I reviewed briefly in my last post, John Mehrmann and Mitchell Simon make a sharp distinction between trying to solve a client’s immediate problem (his “pain”) for your immediate personal gain on the one hand, and trying to help him overcome his longer-term obstacles and achieve his goals on the other.

A simple example: The prospective customer complains, “My car won’t start.” The sales person focuses on the pain: “the car”, and responds: “I want to sell you this car.”

However, if the customer says: I cannot get where I want to go”, it will be easier for our sales professional to zero in on the customer , rather than the pain, and make the far more effective commitment: “I will find the best solutions for you, now and later.”

The trouble is, of course, that the sales guy, for whatever reason, is not always fully aware of the client’s goals, needs and aspirations. I love this little anecdote that the authors of The Trusted Advocate relate – both sad and amusing…and so typical:

A woman was visiting her dentist for a routine semiannual cleaning procedure. Despite the temporary discomfort, she was in good spirits, knowing that soon she would leave with clean, sparkling white teeth. But little did she realize, as the dentist draped a bib around her neck and inserted section tubes inside her mouth, that she was about to become the target of an unsolicited sales campaign.

You see, in an effort to diversify his business and generate additional revenue, the dentist was now offering Botox Cosmetology as an add-on service. From his point of view, it was a great idea. It enabled him to earn more income with the same amount of office space, minimal investment in supplies – and best of all, ready access to potential customers every working day.

As the woman was sitting in his chair – literally a captive audience – our dentist began to expound on the many benefits of the Botox procedure to reduce wrinkles. The more he waxed lyrical with his eloquent sales talk, the more the mood of his poor patient plunged. Instead of being happy on account of her now sparkling teeth, she felt miserable for the rest of the day. “Do I really have a problem with wrinkles?” she was wondering.

After consulting with and being duly reassured by friends and family members that her concern was groundless, the woman took swift action. She successfully resolved her wrinkle problem by…permanently changing dentists.

Presumably, in time, the penny will drop for our hapless dentist and he will have learned his lesson…but how many sales people, marketers, entrepreneurs, professionals and self-styled “gurus” will remain out there who’ll never learn theirs?

Azriel Winnett is the author of the highly acclaimed, eye-opening book How to Build Relationships That Stick. An enhanced edition is now available as a paperback.