Babette Ten Haken

Contact Babette
  • Home
  • Programs
    • Keynote Presentations
    • Breakouts & Workshops
    • Coaching & Facilitation
  • Blog
  • About Babette
    • Testimonials
    • Honors & Awards
  • Contact Me!
You are here: Home / Collaboration And Convergence / Charles H. Green's Defining Moment

Charles H. Green's Defining Moment

June 28, 2012 by Babette Ten Haken Leave a Comment

It was a sales call early in my career, where a lot was at stake (for me). After a pleasant meeting, the potential client looked me straight in the face and asked me, “Tell me, Mr. Green, how much experience do you have doing marketing studies for industrial consumables?”  (The job was a marketing study for a sandpaper company).

 Gulping, I realized that most likely we’d never done any marketing work in such a narrow vertical as that (not to mention I couldn’t think what else besides sandpaper would even constitute “industrial consumables”), and I began to formulate an answer full of MBA-speak that began with, “Not exactly, but we’ve done a lot of similar work…”

 But my boss cut me off and quickly answered the question for us both. “None that I can think of,” he smiled brightly. “Unless that’s a show-stopper, what else would you like to chat about?”

 I figured that my boss had somehow smelled a rat and was contriving to get us thrown out on our ears in the fastest manner possible by being socially outrageous and offensive. 

 But I was surprised. The client threw open his arms, leaned back and said, “Well, shoot, that’s OK, hardly anyone’s done sandpaper marketing specifically. So, what else have you got that we could talk about?”

 And I suddenly realized what had just happened. He had gained us complete permission to say nearly everything I had been about to say, about comparable experiences and related studies, and the client would happily listen to it. 

 Yet despite the similarity in content, if we’d done it my way, I’d have found myself in a tussle with my client; an attempt by me to show how smart I was, followed by an inevitable counter-attack by him to determine my weaknesses. 

 Instead, my boss had defused the tension and turned the tables all at once.  Suddenly we were on the same side of the table with the client, in a discussion motivated by his needs, and dominated on his end by a genuine curiosity, rather than a suspicious contest. 

 Most amazingly, he did it by doing the exact opposite of everything I’d been taught up until then: he said “I don’t know.” For a consultant, “I don’t know” had always been the admission of failure. Knowing the answer, I thought, was what clients wanted, and what therefore consulting was all about. 

 Turns out that while clients certainly want answers, they place far greater value on people who can help them define the right questions to ask in the first place.  And to evaluate good problem-definers, it’s crucial to know whether you can trust them to tell you the boundaries of their own knowledge. 

 The incident gave me a great keynote opening, but it gave me a lot more too: it changed the way I think of consulting, and in particular it gave me the confidence to face my own fears, even to the point of sharing them with other people. Which has turned out to be (very) valuable.

 Charles H. Green is an author and subject matter expert on trust-based relationships and trust-based selling in business. Founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates, he is author of Trust-based Selling, and co-author of The Trusted Advisor and The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook .

Charles works with complex organizations to improve trust in sales, internal trust between organizations, and trusted advisor relationships with external clients and customers.  He has worked with clients in professional services, high tech, oil & gas, financial services, and other industries. Charles spent 20 years in management consulting.

He majored in philosophy (Columbia), and has an MBA (Harvard).  A widely sought-after speaker, he has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Directorship Magazine, Management Consulting News, Businessweek.com, CPA Journal, American Lawyer, and many others.

Enjoy this post? Please share it!

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on LinkedInShare on EmailShare on Reddit

Filed Under: Collaboration And Convergence, Professional Development Tagged With: business development, Charles H. Green, customer acquisition, defining moments, professional development

About Babette Ten Haken

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Hire Babette to speak at your next conference or corporate meeting.

https://youtu.be/Yf-h80O_QZ4
Sign up to receive posts via email
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
No spam, ever. Promise. Powered by FeedBlitz
SalesProCentral
Customer Experience Update

Categories

  • Collaboration And Convergence
  • Customer Experience, Success, Loyalty, Retention
  • Human Capital & Industrial IoT Workforce
  • Professional Development
  • Trending Book Reviews
  • Uncategorized

Recent Posts

  • Will Your Professional Core Capabilities Actually Limit Your Value?
  • If It Is Not Fun Then Why Keep Doing It?
  • 3 Blog Posts To Professionally Reboot Yourself
  • How Are You Investing Emotional Energy On Clients?
  • Are Your Clients Prioritizing Absolutely Everything?

Archives

Revenue-Generating Problem Solving | Professional Innovation | Collaborative Leadership | Keynotes, Workshops, Facilitation Learn more....

Contact Babette
Sign up to receive posts via email
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
No spam, ever. Promise. Powered by FeedBlitz

Recent Posts

Will Your Professional Core Capabilities Actually Limit Your Value?

If It Is Not Fun Then Why Keep Doing It?

3 Blog Posts To Professionally Reboot Yourself

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on LinkedInFollow Us on Instagram

Privacy Policy

Change Catalyst | Revenue-Generating Problem Solving | Professional Innovation | Collaborative Leadership | Keynotes, Workshops, Facilitation
Sales Aerobics for Engineers®, All Rights Reserved 2022 ©
By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies