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Are You a Trusted Advisor?

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The phrase “trusted advisor” has almost become a cliché. Since I co-wrote the book on the subject, I have some standing to say that. And to say a few other things about it. So I think I will.

First, ubiquity. Today’s “trusted advisor” of popularity metrics—a google word count—shows “about 706,000." Digg—the new kid on the block—shows 292 pages at 15 per page, for a total of 4,380 entries.

But that’s just mentions. When it comes to assertions that so and so is, or wants to be, “your trusted advisor,” it gets interesting. Let’s start with the oddity of a website, declaring to the indeterminate masses, that its author is your trusted advisor. Brings to mind such chestnuts as “I’m from the IRS and I’m here to help you…”

But boldly going where many have gone before, a full 39,500 Google entries contain “your trusted advisor.” Who, pray tell, are these noble souls?

Well, would you believe Rudy Giuliani? The law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani (when he joined in in 2005 it was Bracewell & Patterson) pens a newsletter called Your Trusted Advisor. It’s about things like estate planning. (I wonder if Patterson trusted Rudy…)

There’s Morales & Associates, an insurance broker-dealer firm whose website is called YourTrustedAdvisor.com . The website (or Bob?) genially says, “Thank you again for visiting ‘Your Trusted Advisor.’” You’re welcome, uh, Bob.

FutureNow, a website design company, says, “An engine ‘hitting on all cylinders’ best illustrates the look and feel of the unique relationships we have with clients who have hired us as Trusted Advisors.”

Huh? You can hire trusted advisors? Apparently so. Craigslist has 80 job descriptions that contain “trusted advisor.” Tom Gegax says, “Retain Tom as your trusted advisor; Tom Gegax is a trusted advisor to CEOs and business owners around the world.” He must be, because he says so, and he’s a trusted advisor.

The Alberta Business Family Institute teaches a program called, fittingly, the Trusted Advisor Program. It “provides the skills and knowledge needed to enhance an advisor’s role to be the most trusted.” Hmmm, skills and knowledge. Kind of like getting a CPA, I guess.

An awful lot of financial people are your trusted advisor, but it’s not an exclusive club. GMAC Real Estate has 22,000 agents, one of whom is Brian Matthews, your trusted advisor.

You also have a trusted advisor in the feed business. And you’re in luck if you need someone to trust in broadband services.

Nobody owns the term, least of all me. But for what it’s worth, let me offer a few thoughts.

1. The two most trust-destroying words you can say are, “trust me.” Never say you’re someone’s trusted advisor, much less say you want to be, much less build an ad campaign around it. It is inherently non-credible and insincere. (I try on my own website—which of course uses the term—to say "helping people become trusted advisors"—and not to claim that I are one).

2. Trust worth the name has a personal component to it. Impersonal trust isn’t quite an oxymoron, but if it relies on credibility or dependability alone, it has more in common with predicting the weather than with being a trusted advisor.

3. The deepest trait of a trusted advisor is focus on the other, not on oneself. Low self-orientation. Not in it just for oneself. Driven by connection, not competition. Someone who actually, really, genuinely cares—just because. Caring, I suggest, is at the heart of the matter.

Care to rate yourself? Take the quiz here. Don’t forget to click on the “interpretation” button to see everyone’s results, and my comments on the test.

What do you think? What is a trusted advisor? Is the term getting overused? And what does that mean for trust?

Yesterday’s Post, Spam Filters, and the Industry-That-Shall-not-be-Named

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Yesterday I wrote a post about how a particular industry could address its pervasive trust problems.

I’m sure you’re familiar with this industry — if only because it is a notorious subject of email spam.

In fact, spam filters are so sensitive to mentions of this industry by name that several readers who subscribe to this blog by email have reported finding yesterday’s post quarantined by their spam filters.

In other words: if you subscribe by email, your spam filter may have protected you from yesterday’s post. You don’t need the protection!

Please read it directly at http://trustedadvisor.com/blog/153/

I’d welcome thoughts on how I can write about this particular industry, yet evade spam filters for my email subscribers.

Incidentally, the industry is not the one about "people not wearing clothes and being very friendly," nor the industry of restoring deposed African nobility with their vast fortunes. It is the other industry that spam filters love to hate. If you haven’t clicked on the link yet, any guesses on what the topic was?

Maybe if the industry gets trustworthy enough, even our spam filters will be able to trust it. That’d be good.

Meanwhile. If you take a moment to add the sending address for any subscriptions you receive by email to your email address book or "safe list" (depending on the specifics of your email program), this increases the chances of your subscriptions making it past your spam filter and arriving safely in your inbox.

RSS feeds eliminate the spam filter problem and may be a more reliable alternative to email subscriptions for reading blogs in some cases. If you are considering signing up for Trust Matters by RSS, our RSS address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/TrustMatters
and if you’d like help setting it up you are welcome to contact my support team at [email protected] .

 

How the Pharmaceutical Industry Can Increase Trust

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“You can’t talk your way out of what you behaved your way into,” says Stephen Covey.

But not everyone believes Covey.

NY Times, May 22, 2007.

“Columbia University dismissed its financial aid director yesterday after the release of documents showing he promoted a student loan company in which he had a stake, sending letters to parents and alumni on three occasions praising the lender.”

NY Times, March 21, 2007.

…the year [Dr. Allan Collins]was chosen as president-elect of the National Kidney Foundation, the pharmaceutical company Amgen, which makes the most expensive drugs used in the treatment of kidney disease, underwrote more than $1.9 million worth of research and education programs led by Dr. Collins…In 2005, Amgen paid Dr. Collins at least $25,800, mostly in consulting and speaking fees…

…Dr. Donald Hunninghake served on a government-sponsored advisory panel that wrote guidelines for when people should get cholesterol-lowering pills… eight of [the panel’s] nine members had financial ties to drug makers.

A 2002 survey found that more than 80 percent of the doctors on panels that write clinical practice guidelines had financial ties to drug makers.

Doctors said that lectures were highly educational, and that drug makers hired them for their medical expertise and speaking skills. But former drug company sales representatives said they hired doctors as speakers mostly in hope of influencing that doctor’s prescribing habits.

I don’t wish to engage in pharma-bashing. But Covey’s point needs heeding.

Columbia’s response to conflict was to say that the director, a 1985 graduate of the university, had “abused a position of trust and violated the university policy on conflicts of interest.”

So they fired him.

Covey, presumably, would approve.

Not so in pharma. In recent decades, the business of making and selling drugs has become much less about making and much more about selling. Perhaps that’s why the industry tends to see its trust problem as a marketing or PR issue—’if only the public knew the full truth, they’d trust us.’

Typical is this headline, from an April post by Ipsos research, :

Pharmaceutical Companies Need To Raise Awareness Of Their Social Investments To Improve Industry’s Image

Or this, promoting an interactive web seminar:

How can you safely navigate this politically-charged environment—and keep your business and brands strong? What can you do to restore public trust—even while facing negative campaign rhetoric? Find out at a New WebSeminar—Surviving the Election Wars: Strategies to Build Trust and Defend Brands.

Just to be clear who they view as being in charge of trust and brands:

If you are involved in advertising, marketing, market research, corporate communications, product and brand management, senior management, public affairs, or public relations…This is a program you can’t afford to miss!

PhRMA, the industry association, is a big proponent of the trust-is-a-communications-issue viewpoint. In an article appropriately titled "New PhRMA Leaders Discuss Future of the Industry, Need for More Public Education, " PhRMA’s CEO, ex-congressman Billy Tauzin, says, "“For PhRMA to continue to advocate well for our members, we must begin to correct the misconceptions and the outright fraudulent views that have been created about our work and our products.”

So, how’s it working? Here’s one survey:

43% of US adults believe that pharmaceutical companies fund groups like the American Heart Association and the National Kidney Foundation in order to get more people to buy their products or medicines, whereas only 21% believe it is to demonstrate that the companies care about a health issue supported by the group.

Truth: the pharmaceutical industry is loaded with good, smart, dedicated, well-meaning people. It has saved millions of lives, and improved millions more. It has the potential to do unimagineable good. We need a trusted pharmaceutical industry. But it’s the industry that must do the heavy lifting, not the consumer. The only real way to be trusted is—to be trustworthy.

A friend who does PR for pharma tells me it is difficult to give away drug coverage to lower income people—for free—because people are suspicious.

Covey’s right. You can’t talk your way out of a problem you behaved your way into—ask Imus. You can’t market your way out of structural conflicts of interest—ask Arthur Andersen. You don’t become trustworthy—worthy of trust—via marketing or advertising or PR agencies. That’s throwing water on a grease fire.

Pharma needs a fundamental recontracting with two critical constituencies—patients and physicians. It’s a business thirsting for trust—but trust based on values and behaviors. Not on spin, ads, press releases, awareness improvement and “education.”

We should all be rooting for pharma to make that shift.

Insurance Fraud, Short-Selling and Why You Can’t Trust Stock Analysts

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8AM, July 17, 1989: I’m driving on Route 2 outside Concord Massachusetts, lights flashing and horn honking, fighting rush hour traffic. My son is nearly being born in the back of the car. We reach Emerson Hospital; nurses rush my wife to the ER; I park the car and run back.

Birth time: about one minute after reaching the hospital. Delivery: by the good nurses, a minute before the obstetrician on duty arrives to bless what’s now history.

Two weeks later, the bill arrives. It includes several thousand dollars for the obstretrician. I call to complain. “What do you care,” the office says, “it’s all covered by your insurance.”

9:20AM May 12, 2007: I’m flying from Amsterdam Schiphol back home, reading Joseph Nocera in the Herald Tribune, Why Short-sellers Should Have Their Say. Think of short-selling as the “opposite” of buying stocks—betting that a stock will go down, rather than up.

Since precisely 50% of stock trades involve selling, you’d think Wall Street would put roughly the same emphasis on when to sell as on when to buy. Of course, you’d be wrong. There are few short-sellers, and they are often reviled, harrassed, even sued.

Reasons often given for the dearth of short-sellers are that losses from short-selling are potentially unlimited (true), that short-selling goes against the long-term natural rise of the market (true so far), and that human psychology is basically optimistic (debatable). But those are weak explanations.

The real reason is—wait for it—money. Wall Street gains more when you buy and trade than when you sell. This is one reason securities analysts overwhelmingly issue positive, not negative, ratings. But there’s more.

Companies don’t like negative ratings. To be more precise, CEOs and senior managers of companies with compensation tied to stock performance don’t like negative ratings. Many leaders call the analysts’ parent company to complain, even issue veiled threats to switch to other providers of financial services. Even sue.

And voila, the analysts either withdraw the negative rating or just stop covering the company.

The analyst will blame management for telling him to emphasize positive reviews. Thus he justifies his lapse in professionalism: the devil made me do it.

The poorly rated company blames the analyst for “unfair” analysis (meaning it hurts the CEO in the wallet). Easier to blame the analyst than to take responsibilty for the shortcomings identified.

Management of the analyst firm also caves in, blaming the blackmail tactics of the rated company.

Fingers point everywhere but back. Blame instead of responsibility And blame feeds the rot.

Our social “solutions” propagate the problem. We opt for an expensive regulatory program like Sarbanes-Oxley, to protect everyone from their presumed innate selfish tendencies. Our approach resembles airport security—“somebody will always cheat: let’s constrict everyone’s freedom, in order to stop the few.” But securities markets are not airports.

Far from stopping a culture of blame-throwing, this approach enables it by assuming bad motives.

Instead, we should selectively prosecute the hell out of individuals who behave badly. Prosecute analysts who won’t honor their role, CEOs who blackmail bankers, and bankers who cave in, and who lack the guts to call the cops.

A vibrant community of short-sellers would have seen Enron coming. A few people could have spotted the lies, and made a lot of money by publicizing the rot—saving a lot of lifes’ savings and careers. An MBA class at Cornell did just that—analyzed the numbers and recommended shorting Enron well before it imploded. No one was listening.

Business has no right complaining about government intervention if it can’t bring to bear the pressure of capitalism upon itself. Greed and lies aren’t the stuff of business—they’re the death of business, as long as they stay in dark rooms.

July, 1998, Madison, New Jersey: I go to a collision damage repair shop.

“I’ve got a dent in the back door of my car, can you punch it out? It doesn’t have to be perfect."

“Nah, we’d have to replace the whole door.”

“No you wouldn’t—the gas station will do it for me for a hundred bucks, I figure you guys could just do a better job. It’s a simple job to punch it out, I’d do it myself if I had the tools.”

“Buddy—god alone couldn’t fix that door, we’ll replace it or do nothing at all.”

Translation: “what do you care, your insurance company is paying. And we’re not about to ruin a good scam by being customer-focused.”

We don’t have to put up with this crap. Call your better business bureau. Call your state regulatory agency. Call your insurance company. Write a letter to the editor. Rat these people out.

With the market in nosebleed territory, you might want to short a few stocks yourself. If your broker doesn’t know how, then help create trust and integrity in the market while you make money—by getting a new broker.
 

Does Business Squeeze the Poor?

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BusinessWeek’s cover story of May 21 sounds a tad unusual. Titled The Poverty Business: Inside U.S. Companies’ Audacious Drive to Extract More Profits from the Nation’s Working Poor, it answers in the affirmative.

Unusual for a business magazine—perhaps. But BW’s right—It’s time to strip politics and ideology from the discussion of a serious issue—the dissollution of trust in an increasingly divided society.

If you think the gap between the haves and the have-nots hasn’t increased massively, you may be as lonely as the anti-global warming people. The data are not on your side, and the public increasingly knows it.

From BW:

“It’s not only that the poor are paying more; the poor are paying a lot more,” says Sheila C. Blair, chairman of the FDIC, talking about auto and mortgage loans.

“Having access to credit should be helping low-income individuals. But instead fo becoming an opportunity for upward social and economic mobility, it becomes a debt trap for many trying to move up,” says Nouriel Roubini of NYU’s Stern School.

BW describes a growing range of companies selling high-priced products to the working poor. You can yourself look up stats about the growing income gap; the growing wealth gap; the increasing employment gap; the CEO to average worker gap; and the declining rates of upward social mobility that exist in this country.

There is, of course, no shortage of ideologues who want to invoke Milton Friedman and a strict constructionist view of Adam Smith.
Their arguments have the sound of 18th century English political theorists writing about natural law. Free markets are god’s blessing upon us—they work only when producers are free to produce what consumers freely choose. Anything else is an abridgment of freedom for producer and consumer alike. And so on.

We have heard this logic applied to tobacco, and watched people die. To fast food, and watched a national epidemic of morbid obseity among children. To CEO compensation, and seen vodka-peeing ice statues. To credit card and subprime mortgagers, and watched people sign themselves into servitude and bankruptcy. Then we made bankruptcy harder to get.

The gospel of capitalism has been hijacked by frenetic ideologues who never outgrew their adolescent delight with Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. It’s time to take it back. We need a new, healthy, spirited, mature version of capitalism, one that doesn’t enslave society’s weakest to overly reward shareholders.

Laissez faire is not natural law. It was given by lawmakers, who themselves crudely approximated the will of society. It is not guaranteed by anyone.

Here’s what Daniel Yankelovich—a highly respected veteran of opinion research—had to say recently in McKinsey Quarterly (subscription only);

"Business doctrines have to change. Ideologies like shareholder value are being abused to rationalize and justify outrageous behavior. One of the tests for whether companies are aligning themselves with a broader social engagement is the extent to which the doctrine of shareholder value loses credibility.

"I don’t think it’s going to be openly repudiated, but I suspect that, gtadually, executives will stop making as much reference to it to justify their actions. It privileges one group, one constituency, over all the others, and it carries so much baggage now becaused it’s been so perverted and linked to short-term profits.

The social fabric depends on trust. Our ideologues don’t talk about that. We must take back the conversation.

BW is not alone. Consider this, from the NYTimes Dealbook blog:

John C. Whitehead, who retired as co-chairman of Goldman Sachs in 1984, called current compensation levels at the giant securities firm “shocking” and said he was “appalled” at Wall Street pay in general.

One healthy sign: my 30th reunion at Harvard Business School last fall. The most heavily attended lecture was by Professor Bruce Scott, who spoke about the global trend toward concentration of wealth. We’re moving toward looking like Rio de Janeiro—armed gated communities surrounded by violent gangs.

Scott’s lecture got a standing ovation—both in his lecture room, and in the audio-connected overflow room, hastily put together to accommodate the crowd.

This from the old school crowd at HBS—the West Point of capitalism. There is hope.
 

Hostage Negotiation – Lessons for Selling, Customer Service and Business Relationships

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Pierre Cerulus steered me to Hostage at the Table by George Kohlrieser, now a professor at IMD, and a former hostage negotiator. The metaphor of hostage taking is one of the best I’ve seen for thinking about leadership and personal development.

Are you a hostage? Or a hostage taker? Or—both at once?

Here’s a remarkable statistic—professional hostage-negotiators have a 95% success rate. 95% of the time they persuade potential killers drenched in adrenaline to change their minds.

Compare that with your success rate in closing sales or persuading clients. (And they’re not even homicidal. Yeah yeah I know).

Kohlrieser’s most compelling vignettes, however, are about amateurs. The lady in Atlanta who talked down her abductor. The grandmother who, with her 9-year-old granddaughter at her side, talked down the blood-drenched escaped convict who had killed a neighboring family minutes before entering her bedroom at 3AM.

The “trick” is to make a human connection with the hostage-taker. Simple to say, hard to do. This is one of the better books I’ve seen on just how to do it. For more—read the book.

Of course, we’re not likely to be in a hostage situation. But metaphorically—we are all the time.

Hostage-taking is an alienated act of desperation—a cry for help. The failing of most hostages, and most amateur hostage-negotiators, is that they cannot see past the threat to themselves, to see the desperation in the other.

Apply that to work. The angry customer. The resentful co-worker. The “gotcha” performance review. All are driven by states of mind others—which we choose to experience as personal attacks on ourselves.

We let them hold us hostage. But there are no guns here. Our response is within our control. It is not that they are attacking us—it is that we are feeling attacked. We own our own oppression.

In Mel Brooks’ hilarious Blazing Saddles, the sheriff faces a hostile mob. He realizes he can escape by taking a hostage—himself. Pointing the gun at his own temple, he shouts, “No one moves—or I’ll blow his head off,” then slowly backs out of the room.

That’s what we do, when we allow ourselves to be hijacked by the emotions of others; when we react to those emotions, rather than acting from our own true selves. We become hostage-taker, with ourselves as hostage; a double-bind, with no win-win possible.

But the angrier or more distressed someone is, the more they want to find someone to relieve them of that anger of distress – someone to care. Passion gives you something to work with.

The answer is the same in the metaphor as in life. See the person beneath the fear—first the customer/co-worker, then ourselves. Connect with that real person. Engage in a true dialogue.

It is the same principle that governs the creation of trust, and it disproves an old myth about trust—that trust takes time.

It doesn’t. It takes connection.

 

Why Hugh Hefner Likes the No Asshole Rule

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Bob Sutton’s delightful book The No-Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn’t came out several months ago and has been a hit—it’s #136 on Amazon today.

But I’m curious about who’s buying the book, and why. There’s something happening here—but what it is ain’t exactly clear.

We “get” the title instantly. Sutton argued with publishers about it, and explains why other words just weren’t precisely right enough for this thought. He did get it just right.

Nor is this management soft porn. Sutton is serious and articulate about the need to strip assholes out of business—and his message is solid.

But that doesn’t get you best seller status. Thousands of books and articles talk about good leadership principles of collaboration, respect for others, and so forth.

Is it the catchy title? Titles do help. Think Blink. Or the all-time best-seller, The Power of Positive Thinking—(originally titled The Power of Prayer—think of the difference that title made!)

Is it the “naughty” factor? In the repressed world of business book titles, it’s the Lady Chatterly’s Lover or Ulysses of our time. But, they didn’t top the charts either.

The Booklist review on Amazon tips us off:

If you have ever been a victim, just reading Sutton’s analysis brings calm relief, empowerment, and reassurance that you’re not alone.

I think we buy it because “asshole” is so obviously, completely about those people—and not about me. It’s about them. The idiot in line at the store. The flaming jerk on the airplane. And—most of all—the Boss from Hell. My boss, as chance would have it.

The title seduces us because it legitimizes a guilty pleasure—bitching, moaning, and kvetching about how bad other people are—to us! We don’t often get guilt-free permission to indulge so deliciously in the blaming of others—carpe diem!

Let me be clear—I’m not criticizing the book’s content. Sutton is in good company in his recommendations about management and leadership styles. He even spends a chapter on how not to be an asshole.

But that’s not why we buy it. That’s not the hook. The real hook for buyers, I suspect—is victimhood. It’s not my fault I feel bad—someone did it to me. Those, those—assholes!

It’s this indulgence in blame-throwing—a decidedly unhealthy occupation—that gives me pause.

But here’s the genius part: since the book is a legitimate commentary on management, the reader has plausible deniability about motive.

I may say that I’m buying the book to read the self-diagnostic parts and to think seriously about the management theses—as they apply to me—so that I can shoulder my managerial responsibilities and be a better person, leader and co-worker.

And I used to read Playboy for the articles, too.
 

Trust Tip 57: Don’t “Handle” Objections

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Let’s talk about the word “objection.”

In sales, it’s usually preceded by either “handling” or “overcoming.” (Occasional mention: “eliminating,” or “crushing”).

But “handling” someone’s objection treats that person as an object—an obstacle to be overcome.
Worse, it trivializes and minimizes the person’s often-genuine concern by turning it into a puzzle-game to be solved by the seller.  “Crushing” someone’s objection is the more honest version of the same thing.

So—don’t do that. Instead, take a tip from our canine friends.

After eating his dinner, my dog Sammy often approaches me and brings up—The Objection. The Objection is raised ears, cocked head, eyes fixed on mine—frozen in place.

He’s telling me something’s wrong—or at least not right.  He’s very good at articulating The Objection—I get that something’s not right.   I just have no clue what it means.  (And sometimes, he doesn’t either. )

Sometimes he licks his chops—an easy one, I think.  “More food?” Nope.

“Okay,” (switch to that highly inflected baby talk we use with dogs), “want to go for a ride in the car and a walk?” Nope.

"A rawhide cigarette?"  No. " Play with your rope toy? "  No.  "A nice petting?"  No.

We have our checklist. If it’s food or water or a walk he needs, we figure it out pretty quickly.

But it’s rarely just about the food or water. It’s also about the ritual. The connection.  Sometimes, it’s only about the connection.

He’s a social animal—he needs his people fix. The Objection is his fix.  (If you’re a dog lover, you know it’s your fix too.)

If Sammy needs a connection fix, and I only give him food and treats, I will soon have a dysfunctional dog on my hands.  Neurotic, or disobedient, or sullen—maybe even dangerous; maybe just sad.  But certainly unconnected.

Hey, he’s just a dog, some might say. But dogs, like people, live up—or down—to expectations. If your dog’s “just a dog,” you made him that way.

When buyers voice The Objection—do we run down the checklist? Aim for efficient answer-guessing? Do we say, “and if I could get you [the food, the water, the treat], then would you be ready to buy?”  Then we’re not honoring the connection.

“Handling” objections is treating buyers like “just a dog”—devaluing the connection. But the need for connection runs deep in people.

From the days of the bazaar to now, people don’t buy blindly.  That’s why eBay rates sellers, and we pay a lot more for branded water (which—think about it—is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and easily available for free).

Dogs are slower to blame, and quicker to forgive, than buyers. They react even worse to being treated “like dogs.”

Objections aren’t “objections:” they are buyer-initiated invitations for connection.  Unless it’s a pack of gum at the newspaper stand, or a tank of gas, we want that connection in our buying.  It is not, repeat not, about just guessing the right "need."

Instead of “handling” their objection, thank them for the invitation to dialogue.

Then get into it. Find out what’s behind it. What are they worried about? Why does that matter? How does that work? What happens then? What’s at stake for the client?

If your goal as salesperson is to help your client, then you are on the same side. It’s not a contest, it’s a relationship.  This is the ritual of relationships that we do to create trust—so that we can do business.

Rethinking Commerce

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The business world talks a lot about competition, and not enough about commerce.  I mean commerce in the “old” sense of the word—like a century or so “old,” when it was pretty much synonymous with business.

Commerce, the way I’m using it, is about the interaction between producers and consumers, buyers and sellers. It’s as old as bartering at the bazaar. Commerce, not competition, is what Adam Smith had in mind in his Invisible Hand metaphor.

This interaction has been coopted in recent decades by a focus on competition.  Every commercial interaction has been re-cast in terms of competition. All aspects of business—selling, recruiting, design—get discussed in terms of how they can most profitably contribute to sustainable corporate competitive advantage.

That miscasting has been particularly insidious in sales, where the “us-them” mentality has gotten enshrined.  Most of what is written about selling is aimed at getting them to buy from us, while studiously avoiding saying it’s so.  At it’s best, this approach  says the best way for us to get what we want is to help them get what they want.  True—but not a full picture.

Along comes Jeff Thull to bring us back to the future—a truly commerce-based way of viewing selling.  Jeff heads PrimeResources, and is author of three books, including Exceptional Selling.

Tom Peters says, “I am a Jeff Thull fan.”  So am I.  Briefly, here’s why.

Jeff comes off as a humble guy, but he makes a pretty bold statement: all sales approaches thus far can be lumped into two Eras:

Era 1: getting the buyer to do what we want
Era 2: finding out what the buyer wants, so we can give it to them.

Jeff includes in Era 2 pretty much all the big current programs: SPIN, consultative selling, et al. So what’s wrong with Era 2?

What’s wrong is that solutions these days are complex; so are the environments they go into. The dirty little truth is—the buyer these days honestly doesn’t know what his needs truly are.  That’s Era 3.

A doctor wouldn’t let you self-diagnose heart arrhythmias; but Era 2 selling does just that, by presuming the customer knows his own needs. He doesn’t. Not anymore. Nor does the salesperson know the customer’s environment.  Neither can succeed without the other.  Era 3 recognizes this.

This was always true—but it’s way more true now. The level of interdependency in the business world is way higher than it was just ten years ago.   That’s the new reality.

I call Thull’s approach "back to the future," because that’s what commerce used to be about—an interaction between parties who can be of use to each other.

The right approach for sales in the future is not based on getting the sale, or on achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the selling company. It’s about tearing down the boundaries between organizations, collaboratively helping each other to figure out the best thing to do for both.

It requires customer focus for the customer’s sake; collaboration; a focus on the relationship instead of the transaction; and on transparency.

Those happen to be the Four Trust Principles I talk about in my own book Trust-based Selling.  Coincidence?  Hardly;  we’re both talking about how commerce is done in a relational world.  Selling is about relationships—again.
 

The April Top 5

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The most popular post in April was actually from late March. Perhaps because many people hope to be…

1. Working and Feeling Good – it seems that being happy at work is much like being happy in a marriage, and that it has less to do with your paycheck than one might think….

2. The Sacred Cow of Retention – is high retention caused by golden handcuffs really the type you want?

3. What if You Played Music and Nobody Listened – One of the best musicians in the world played in the DC Subway, and no one stopped to listen. Do we know good performance when we see or hear it? Or do we only see it when we expect it or from people we expect it from? The answer is probably pretty important.

4. Trust-Destroying Selling – Concrete examples of how sometimes doing everything you can to get a sale is the worst thing you can do.

5. Trust, Betrayal and the 9/11 Jumpers – Resurrected from the archives, the question of whether or not you can trust the press to tell the "whole truth, and nothing but the truth" is one that continues to bother people. Can you? Should you? When is it acceptable not to tell the whole truth?

Please join the conversation on any of these posts. What do you think – what’s the happiness-to-money link; what’s the role of trust in the press; is quality a relative thing?  Relative to what?