Conveying Contrast

📅 22nd October 2018 | Selling

Standing out from the crowd, daring to be different, showing your differentiator or simply conveying contrast may be modern day sales cliches but it is remains necessary to capture buyers attention and to keep their attention. This is challenging as true differentiators, other than price, aren’t easy to come by in this highly competitive world where buyers have little time and products and services are very similar.

Getting attention was covered in a previous blog post giving your potential customers feelings of “warmth” and security can come next – a business networking meeting is as good a place as any to practice and observe correct business behaviours. Well you would think so wouldn’t you!

A while ago, I had to re-post a blog about the unbelievable lack of networking etiquette displayed by certain characters – you can read it here – and the bad behaviour still continues unabated. This time it was in the West End. My “closed two” conversation was going well when that very annoying thing happened. You feel the presence of an unwanted guest just out of eyeshot…it starts to make one feel uncomfortable and breaks your concentration. I’m sure this was felt by my new networking friend….and like magic it happened, an explosion of verbiage from my right-hand side…”Hi, I’m Tom (or whatever his name was) I help people with office spaces” – I regret not responding with “Excuse me but I’m in the middle of a private conversation” – maybe next time. Others suffered at the hands of this person on that morning. I can only conclude that he has a personality disorder or is a sociopath.

And yet this could have so different. If you find yourself where the person you wish to speak to is busy, you simply have to wait your turn. It maybe the case that you will miss your opportunity. Better that than having the tag of an awkward so-and-so. And that is my point….raise your standards. Have the highest standards of self-discipline, professionalism and work ethic. That is the way to show and convey contrast.