Well I Think...

Think about how frequently you tell clients and prospects what you think, and in response, they tell you what they think.

How different would your conversations be, and how much more productive would you become, if you kept your opinions to yourself and dealt with only the facts. Everyone you know is busy, at least they appear to be so, therefore if you can make your point without wasting their time, you can put yourself in a better position to achieve a desired result.

Business conversations should be a productive and progressive dialogue between people with common interest and goals. If you accept this as the objective of each business conversation you must endeavor to stay on track with your progress and not allow the discussion to move too far off the path. Of course you need to spice discussions up with the occasional personal experiences, etc. but you cannot allow valuable time to be consumed by what you think. Clients and prospects do not really care much about what you think, at least not until they are convinced that you really know what you are talking about. Conversations are indeed two-way, but the client should be doing most of the talking and you should be doing most of the listening. When your time to talk is afforded, speak to the facts and leave the opinions out.

Even though you may have been working with a particular business for a long time, the time you are spending with that client is still very valuable so don't take it for granted. You may be so familiar with them that you lose your edge and become complacent. The competition is not complacent and they are after your client by presenting factual reasons, not opinions, on why your client should become their client and do more business with them and less with you. The competition is not wasting valuable time by giving your clients their opinion. They know that sharing what they think is not a productive use of their time and certainly not in the best interest of the client.

Taking your opinions out of your pre-call preparation and business discussions will help to ensure that you remain focused on the reasons clients should use you and not your competition. Don't spend valuable time telling people what you think, tell them what you know because the harsh reality is that people don't care what you think.