Meet the MasterMinds: Harry Beckwith on You, Inc.
Harry Beckwith is the author of the modern marketing classics Selling the Invisible, The Invisible Touch, and What Clients Love: A Field Guide to Growing Your Business. His latest book, which is coauthored by Christine Beckwith, takes the concept of marketing to the individual level. You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself offers hundreds of tips for improving your sales skills.
McLaughlin: Your book starts with the idea that “living is selling,” and that the path to success in living and selling is the same. In what way is it the same path?
Beckwith: In most cases, we buy the person, not the service, and we buy from those we like—specifically, people with whom we feel at ease and to whom we feel important. If you can inspire those feelings in others, both your life and your business will be much better. And there is the satisfaction of knowing that you are living right.
McLaughlin: It’s not unusual for people to seek their comfort zone, whether it’s at work or in social settings. Is there value in seeking out the situations that make us uncomfortable?
 When you feel uncomfortable, you know you are in an area of weakness, and identifying and overcoming weaknesses is one of the major ways we grow. |
Beckwith: There is, because comfort nudges us dangerously close to complacency, and nothing good comes from that. It kills businesses, dulls lives, and encourages nothing better than ordinary. Our greatest blessings come from people who refused to be complacent, whether it was Beethoven or the Beatles.
When you feel uncomfortable, you know you are in an area of weakness, and identifying and overcoming weaknesses is one of the major ways we grow.
Look back at your experiences, and ask, how many of the deeply rewarding moments in my life came when I pushed myself—when I did what I didn’t want to do? I didn’t want to go to Portland, Oregon four years ago, and if hadn’t, I never would have met the women of beyond my wildest dreams.
Later in life, you realize it’s not the ones you asked to dance that you regret. It’s the ones you didn’t.
McLaughlin: In today’s market, many prospective buyers are inundated with marketing and sales messages from eager professionals. Do you have any advice for helping us cut through the noise and make a positive impact on the inundated buyer?
Beckwith: Reread every document you write, and then cut it in half. The resulting copy will be clearer, more powerful, and more compelling; it will make you look more authoritative, and make the recipient more comfortable with you.
In management consulting, you want to appear to be an expert, and nothing conveys that as powerfully as the clarity with which you communicate. Force yourself to be brief and you will be clear.
Use as many words as are needed to convey your message—and not one word more.
If you write something and it flows out easily, mistrust it. There’s a good chance that all you have written is a string of clichés, which encourage readers to stop paying attention to what you’re saying.
McLaughlin: You’ve suggested that we avoid the “cost buyer.” How do you identify that type of buyer?
Beckwith: It’s a sure sign when cost comes up quickly and is repeated often.
Also, ask your prospect what other services or products in your category they have used over the last ten years. If the list is long, maybe they are cost buyers. But they definitely are to be avoided, because they’re not capable of being satisfied. They will take more of your time and resources, and are likely to be unprofitable.
McLaughlin: Is there a potential competitive advantage to be gained with the wise use of time and speed? How can consultants use time and speed to improve the performance of their businesses?
Beckwith: You need look no further than the Internet to realize our irrational thirst for faster, faster. Someone comes out with split-second connections, and they thrive until DSL gives us split-split-second connections. The time saved seems trivial on one hand, yet it tilts the market completely. We love things fast.
Time is the new money. If you can save me time, I’m tempted to work with you. And there’s an added reason. When you respond to me quickly, you are saying “You are important to me.” Those are among the five most precious words in the language; we crave that feeling, and too often do not experience it.
| Reread every document you write, and then cut it in half. |
McLaughlin: It seems like little things can upend the best sale, best project, or best relationship. How do you keep big ideas on track while paying close attention to the smaller, but essential details?
Beckwith: Again, I think complacency is a theme here. Repeatedly we see that businesses overestimate themselves and how well they handle the basics of business. For example, 85 percent of business executives say that their company communicates clearly; yet only 15 percent of clients agree with that.
Almost 90 percent of business executives say they deliver well above average service. By definition, that’s impossible—but then, the average man, asked to rate his attractiveness on a ten-point scale, gives himself a seven. The answer has to be more like five, of course, but humans are prone to think very well of themselves. In business, this habit, the Overconfidence Bias, can be dangerous.
So assume you are doing poorly, and ask “Why?” What aren’t we doing right? And assume that everything can be improved, because it can. Every week we change our web site. You might not notice the first week or even after the second, but after a month, you will. Every change has been tiny, but their sum total can be huge.
McLaughlin: When you listen to presentations, what’s the most common mistake you observe, and how would you suggest that presenters correct that mistake?
Beckwith: It’s tough to point to just one mistake, because there are at least Four Fatal Flaws you see again and again:
1. People talk about themselves and their firms, not the prospects and their problems.
2. The presenter tries to impress the audience members rather than inform and move them.
3. The person looks at the screen and the clicker, not the audience. Trust is built—and sales are made—by looking others in the eyes. We know instinctively that someone who looks away when saying something isn’t being honest; that’s what you convey when you turn to the screen.
4. The speaker presents, rather than speaks; we want to know who you are and we learn that when you speak from your heart, not when you present from your script, or from rote memory.
McLaughlin: You close the book with the advice to “live the problem.” What one thing can any of us do to make that advice work?
Beckwith: This gets back to what we discussed earlier: Be willing to make yourself uncomfortable. You have to hurt to grow, it’s been said, and in life just as in weightlifting and distance running, that certainly is what I’ve seen. The things that hurt most, help most. Trying to dodge problems only deepens them—and makes you feel worse for not having the courage to confront them.
I’ve read that the Greeks believed the greatest of all virtues was courage, because courage made all the others possible. That ancient wisdom has always felt right to me.
McLaughlin: Thanks for your time.
Find out more about Harry Beckwith, his books and services at www.beckwithpartners.com.
Read another interview with Beckwith:
Harry Beckwith and What Clients Love
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