“What area of your business are you most interested in growing?” was a question posed to me recently in an entrepreneur-to-entrepreneur conversation. “I’d like to help you with the part of your business that you care most about.”
What a great way for him to position the question! He reminded me yet again that it is important for all of us to be focused and prepared to tell people what it is that our business needs and wants. And, we must articulate it at a moment’s notice. Let’s face it; it’s easier for people to help us if we are able to tell them what we need in the most simple and memorable manner.
Frequently, professionals in the AEC industry tend to describe every single service they can think of, with the hope that something—absolutely anything at all—will pique the interest of the listener.
In the above mentioned dialogue with my entrepreneur colleague, it was certainly tempting to list all eight services that Scarlett Consulting provides, rather than just emphasize my favorite one or two. But I did remain fairly disciplined in my response, with the hope that stating my favorite service would more likely to ‘stick‘ in his mind—especially if I enhanced my description with an anecdote/story format.
These days, it seems trendy for people to ask how they can ‘help’ in business. A good example is when you get an automatic follow on twitter, the message might say ‘let me know how I can help you’. While I know that some people are resentful of auto responses, I actually don’t mind them when the word ‘help’ is included. I like to believe that the offer is sincere.
Perhaps, dear readers, we can all take our offers to help others a step further…by asking the question mentioned above (What areas of your business do you want to grow?), to truly get a sense about the top priorities of our prospects and networking contacts. This knowledge will most certainly accellerate our ability to help them.