It’s a tense scene. Will the criminal know the informant is wearing a wire? Will the informant say the right thing, and elicit a confession; or will they blunder the operation by letting on they’ve been turned? Fortunately, a calming voice, probably belonging to a veteran detective in a surveillance van around the corner, pipes in through a concealed ear bud: “You’re doing great. Stay calm, remember what we talked about; if you start to stumble I’ll talk you through it…” That reassurance, from someone who has planned many such operations, keeps the informant calm and focused; he doesn’t get made and gets the confession.
So, why am I telling you this, and why should it matter to you? Because, as a start-up founder, you can probably relate to our informant’s experience. Only tension is not building as you walk down a dark alley; it’s building as you board a steel-and-glass elevator. And you are not seeking the confession of an alleged criminal; you are meeting with a potential buyer of your new product. And you are not carrying a roll of marked hundred dollar bills; you have a laptop, sales deck and, perhaps, some swag. But the feeling is still there: all the nerves firing at once, not sure whether you’ll say the right thing, whether you’ll talk too much (or too little) and whether you will convincingly engage your counterpart. The only thing missing is the detective on the radio.
Fortunately, we are speaking metaphorically here, and you don’t actually need someone giving you your next line through a concealed earpiece. A meeting with your “handler” to prepare for the all-important pitch should suffice. The fact that you know every detail of your product is great, but that will not close a sale, just as our informant’s knowledge of a criminal enterprise alone didn’t make him a convincing mole. Just like our informant, you need the right script to avoid getting “made.” And, by “made,” I mean exposed as one of the hundreds of sellers walking into the same conference room each year not truly understanding how to relate their product to this customer’s needs.
As an entrepreneur, it is important to gather and synthesize all the information you can about your prospective customer, in order to pitch specifically to their needs, but you don’t have to do it alone. Just as our informant would have met a nasty end had he walked up and said: “So, about that jewel heist…” walking in and saying: “So, I understand your board considers your losses unacceptable” will probably have a similar result (the death of your sale). In reality, what will help close that sale is having your proverbial detective help you dig through all of your facts, finding the most compelling ones to build the case, before you walk into that fateful meeting. And, while they are unlikely to be whispering into your ear throughout, chances are they will have provided you with the ideal script to deftly maneuver your way through the meeting.
Everybody, whether police informants or entrepreneurs, needs guidance from time to time in understanding what to say, to whom to say it, when to say it and how to frame it. Intuitively, we know this; otherwise marketing departments and communications firms wouldn’t exist. But we rarely apply the same principles to those non-public situations, such as a sales meeting, where an individual message, meant to reach one specific customer is required. As always, I’ll end this article with an invitation to reach out if this is a scenario you have felt one time too many, and one you would like to walk away from unscathed in future (though absent the need to enter witness protection).
Dan Palay is a Chicago-based consultant, specializing in marketing and business development for early-stage and business service companies. Please feel free to contact at [email protected]
