Understand the Thing Your Customer Wants: Attract. Sell. Keep
In order to make a real difference in your business, in order to do something different as an entrepreneur, we explore the very secrets that enable you to move forward and to unlock the potential.
This article features the second part of our interview with Henry Feldman, of theaskbook.com, and who helped us explore the very avenues of the entrepreneur, on how to do certain things, and how to unlock your potential. Read on and learn with us.
David: I'm very excited to talk to you. Thanks for joining us once again Henry.
Henry: Good to talk to you David.
David: If you remember, last time we talked about the entrepreneur, how to market yourself, and open up those opportunities. Do you have any golden rules to achieving a richer life? You mentioned something about freeing yourself from your inner fears and the like. Can you go on a little bit further about that?
Henry: Well, these are the obstacles you must eradicate in order to persist in your promotional efforts. If you are fearful, if you have biases against doing this, and if you have false notions about it, you will just sit comfortably in your comfort zone and you will not grow or achieve the kind of goals that you want to achieve.
David: What about reclaiming the emotional energy that you spend on feelings of being powerless? I suppose it's a matter of realizing there's something better at the end of it?
Henry: Absolutely. I'm one of those goal-striving people. I found that I would flop around and do a lot of wasteful things if I didn't have a goal in mind. All during my life, I wrote business plans. They're kind of short and to the point, and say, "What do you want to do? Why are you doing all this?" And I said, "Well, I want to succeed, there's a certain amount of money that I want to make by being a financial planner, I need to reach a certain goal to maintain my standard of living..." This is a revelation that you don't want to share with your audience but my folks divorced when I was five, and my mother was panicked about money. She was fearful that she would not be able to survive with my sister and me. And that actually set into my mind, so the idea of helping people has been my goal. By helping people, if you had that sense that what you're doing is helpful, guess who gets the most benefit? It's you!
David: Yes, that's right. You've got some other golden rules here. Do you mind if I quickly go through them with you?
Henry: Not at all.
David: Okay. You've got... Identify your last time goals and lay out a plan to achieve them, which you just mentioned about goal-setting and that sort of thing. Be courageous and leave your comfort zone, which we talked about earlier. Be genuinely curious about others, and I suppose that really reflects on just being a decent human being.
Henry: I don't know if this is the right word, if you don't mind. I think that being curious is what it says. If I'm not interested in who you are, what you do, what your struggles are, and what your joys are, you're never going to be curious about me. And the best book ever written on selling, I'm sure you have it in Australia, is Dale Carnegie's famous book, How To Win Friends and Influence People.
David: Yes, that's definitely a good one.
Henry: When people ask, "How can I learn to be a salesman and enrich my life by having more friends?" And I say, read the best book ever written on the subject. When I was 14 years old, and I was shy, like I said, my mother brought me that book and I read that book and it turned on a light in what had been a pretty sad early existence, and I said, "If I ask people about themselves out of genuine curiosity, they may ask me about myself and I can talk to them on what I do and so forth!" And I found out that is the connection that begins relationships. I'm off-point, but I wanted to share that with you.
David: Well, actually I think that it's very relevant to that point. In fact the next point you've got here in one of the golden rules is, listen intently to what others are saying. And I would agree with that 100% because God gave us two ears and one mouth.
Henry: We know that, you and I know that. But amateur salespeople, if I can comment on that, are so fearful of being rejected that they start talking, and they were instructed to do this by famous sales training courses put up by IBM and Xerox, which basically talked about business parts in 1980. That the way to sell is to learn the features and benefits of what you're trying to sell and talk about it, sell the sizzle not the steak, and concentrate on telling the world how wonderful your product is. In the world that we live in now, where it's a buyer's market, and I'm sure that you have a problem there too, too many competitors chasing too few buyers. If you try to do that now, if you have some buyer and you go, "Let me tell you about this...," the person would turn around and run.
David: Yes, I totally agree with that.
Henry: Today you have to be a counter puncher. Now, I'm not saying this is a manipulation because if you read my book you'd know I'm totally against manipulation and pigeon-holing the person because they're old and they're five feet four, and you're trying to understand who they are and where they came from. Simply ask questions. Attract. Sell. Keep. The first letters of those words, when put together, spell ASK. Which is the common thread that goes through my book. So curiosity is about asking questions. Do you have any children, if I can ask?
David: Yes, I've got two kids.
Henry: Are they young?
David: Yes. Ten and 11 years old.
Henry: Do they have any problems with asking you questions?
David: Absolutely not. We tell them that they can ask us any questions. It's just a matter of timing, but, yes absolutely, they can ask us anything.
Henry: At what age do we stop asking questions? And we start to do everything by ourselves?
David: That's a very good question. Probably when we think we know it all.
Henry: Right. After a certain age you know you don't know at all. But people fall into their comfort zones and deny themselves their assertive right to ask questions.
David: Which is sad...
Henry: Yes. We make assumptions about people. So I think it's vital that we maintain our curiosity, legitimate curiosity, not just the general questions but the sort of, follow through. "Did you do anything different?" "Where do you work?" "Do you enjoy your work?" The more curious you are, the more they're going to be curious about you and what you do.
David: Yes. Someone once told me that it's not necessarily the amount of questions, but it's more about asking better questions, which opens people up.
Henry: Well, and what constitutes better?
David: Curiosity.
Henry: Yes, that's the right answer. Whatever you're curious about. If someone says they're in the construction business, like when I met this man on the plane. He said, "I remodel old homes." And I said, "Did you suffer the downturn in the construction industry?" He said, "No. Our business has never been better." So then we started this conversation, and now I'm going to meet this guy. I don't sell anything, but I want to meet this guy. This guy could become a friend, plus, he's a fly fisher, and there's not too many of those people I know. So, you meet a guy on a plane and you start asking questions and he asks questions about you and you find a common interest and all of a sudden, you start a new relationship.
David: Oh yes, that's good. One of the other golden rules here is make others feel good about themselves when they're with you and also appreciate and respect the feelings of others. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Henry: Well, the first part, making people feel good about themselves when they are with you is the singular, major point in Dale Carnegie's book. If you say something to me like, "I just bought a Toyota." Now that's a declarative sentence, "I just
This article features the second part of our interview with Henry Feldman, of theaskbook.com, and who helped us explore the very avenues of the entrepreneur, on how to do certain things, and how to unlock your potential. Read on and learn with us.
David: I'm very excited to talk to you. Thanks for joining us once again Henry.
Henry: Good to talk to you David.
David: If you remember, last time we talked about the entrepreneur, how to market yourself, and open up those opportunities. Do you have any golden rules to achieving a richer life? You mentioned something about freeing yourself from your inner fears and the like. Can you go on a little bit further about that?
Henry: Well, these are the obstacles you must eradicate in order to persist in your promotional efforts. If you are fearful, if you have biases against doing this, and if you have false notions about it, you will just sit comfortably in your comfort zone and you will not grow or achieve the kind of goals that you want to achieve.
David: What about reclaiming the emotional energy that you spend on feelings of being powerless? I suppose it's a matter of realizing there's something better at the end of it?
Henry: Absolutely. I'm one of those goal-striving people. I found that I would flop around and do a lot of wasteful things if I didn't have a goal in mind. All during my life, I wrote business plans. They're kind of short and to the point, and say, "What do you want to do? Why are you doing all this?" And I said, "Well, I want to succeed, there's a certain amount of money that I want to make by being a financial planner, I need to reach a certain goal to maintain my standard of living..." This is a revelation that you don't want to share with your audience but my folks divorced when I was five, and my mother was panicked about money. She was fearful that she would not be able to survive with my sister and me. And that actually set into my mind, so the idea of helping people has been my goal. By helping people, if you had that sense that what you're doing is helpful, guess who gets the most benefit? It's you!
David: Yes, that's right. You've got some other golden rules here. Do you mind if I quickly go through them with you?
Henry: Not at all.
David: Okay. You've got... Identify your last time goals and lay out a plan to achieve them, which you just mentioned about goal-setting and that sort of thing. Be courageous and leave your comfort zone, which we talked about earlier. Be genuinely curious about others, and I suppose that really reflects on just being a decent human being.
Henry: I don't know if this is the right word, if you don't mind. I think that being curious is what it says. If I'm not interested in who you are, what you do, what your struggles are, and what your joys are, you're never going to be curious about me. And the best book ever written on selling, I'm sure you have it in Australia, is Dale Carnegie's famous book, How To Win Friends and Influence People.
David: Yes, that's definitely a good one.
Henry: When people ask, "How can I learn to be a salesman and enrich my life by having more friends?" And I say, read the best book ever written on the subject. When I was 14 years old, and I was shy, like I said, my mother brought me that book and I read that book and it turned on a light in what had been a pretty sad early existence, and I said, "If I ask people about themselves out of genuine curiosity, they may ask me about myself and I can talk to them on what I do and so forth!" And I found out that is the connection that begins relationships. I'm off-point, but I wanted to share that with you.
David: Well, actually I think that it's very relevant to that point. In fact the next point you've got here in one of the golden rules is, listen intently to what others are saying. And I would agree with that 100% because God gave us two ears and one mouth.
Henry: We know that, you and I know that. But amateur salespeople, if I can comment on that, are so fearful of being rejected that they start talking, and they were instructed to do this by famous sales training courses put up by IBM and Xerox, which basically talked about business parts in 1980. That the way to sell is to learn the features and benefits of what you're trying to sell and talk about it, sell the sizzle not the steak, and concentrate on telling the world how wonderful your product is. In the world that we live in now, where it's a buyer's market, and I'm sure that you have a problem there too, too many competitors chasing too few buyers. If you try to do that now, if you have some buyer and you go, "Let me tell you about this...," the person would turn around and run.
David: Yes, I totally agree with that.
Henry: Today you have to be a counter puncher. Now, I'm not saying this is a manipulation because if you read my book you'd know I'm totally against manipulation and pigeon-holing the person because they're old and they're five feet four, and you're trying to understand who they are and where they came from. Simply ask questions. Attract. Sell. Keep. The first letters of those words, when put together, spell ASK. Which is the common thread that goes through my book. So curiosity is about asking questions. Do you have any children, if I can ask?
David: Yes, I've got two kids.
Henry: Are they young?
David: Yes. Ten and 11 years old.
Henry: Do they have any problems with asking you questions?
David: Absolutely not. We tell them that they can ask us any questions. It's just a matter of timing, but, yes absolutely, they can ask us anything.
Henry: At what age do we stop asking questions? And we start to do everything by ourselves?
David: That's a very good question. Probably when we think we know it all.
Henry: Right. After a certain age you know you don't know at all. But people fall into their comfort zones and deny themselves their assertive right to ask questions.
David: Which is sad...
Henry: Yes. We make assumptions about people. So I think it's vital that we maintain our curiosity, legitimate curiosity, not just the general questions but the sort of, follow through. "Did you do anything different?" "Where do you work?" "Do you enjoy your work?" The more curious you are, the more they're going to be curious about you and what you do.
David: Yes. Someone once told me that it's not necessarily the amount of questions, but it's more about asking better questions, which opens people up.
Henry: Well, and what constitutes better?
David: Curiosity.
Henry: Yes, that's the right answer. Whatever you're curious about. If someone says they're in the construction business, like when I met this man on the plane. He said, "I remodel old homes." And I said, "Did you suffer the downturn in the construction industry?" He said, "No. Our business has never been better." So then we started this conversation, and now I'm going to meet this guy. I don't sell anything, but I want to meet this guy. This guy could become a friend, plus, he's a fly fisher, and there's not too many of those people I know. So, you meet a guy on a plane and you start asking questions and he asks questions about you and you find a common interest and all of a sudden, you start a new relationship.
David: Oh yes, that's good. One of the other golden rules here is make others feel good about themselves when they're with you and also appreciate and respect the feelings of others. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Henry: Well, the first part, making people feel good about themselves when they are with you is the singular, major point in Dale Carnegie's book. If you say something to me like, "I just bought a Toyota." Now that's a declarative sentence, "I just
