QUIT SELLING & START HELPING
It is Saturday, 9 o’clock in the morning when Alex woke up from his sleep with a headache he’s facing for past three days.
Alex is a 28-years-old man living in Aeston, A Freelance Web Designer, works mostly from home, is married and have a daughter and a son.
After waking up from his sleep, Alex did his daily routine of refreshment, exercise, and breakfast. He now goes to his workspace and starts working on his web project for his clients. But he couldn’t focus and work because of his headache and that’s where he takes the decision of going to a doctor after trying unsuccessful medicines and other ways to get rid of a headache. He left his workspace and went to see Dr. Alisa in his town. He sat in her cabin and told her that he is facing this headache from 3 days and about the medicines he took, and Dr. Alisa after listening to him, opened her prescription diary, and prescribed two pills for two days to Alex and asked him to come and visit her again after two days. Alex brought the pills and took them for two days but there was no heal, he still has his headache. He visits Dr. Alisa after two days and told her that her medicines had produced no results. She told him that he may have a serious problem and he should visit a hospital.
After listening to her, Alex went back to his home and told what doctor had said, to his wife. Her wife asked him to relax and said that she knows another doctor in town and he should first visit her and then they’ll see if he has to be taken to the hospital or not.
Alex next day went to visit Dr. Mary with her wife and told her about his problem. Dr. Mary began asking questions. She asked lots of question from Alex, like from when is this headache happening, why does he thinks that he has a headache, what must be the reason for his headache, Is there something new in his life suddenly that can cause a headache like he’s working more and getting busier in his work and couldn’t take rest, what Dr. Mary actually did here is that she asked questions about present life of Alex and she kept on digging deeper and asking questions to know about her patient Alex until she found out a solution. After her this process of asking questions, Dr. Mary came up with a non-profitable (profitable in terms of only money here) solution for Alex, she asked Alex to take a three-to-four day off from the work and have some self-reflection, like taking a rest from work and spend some time with himself or with family. Have some self-reflection.
Alex became obedient and did what Dr. Mary asked him to do. After having 3 days off from work and spending quality time with himself and his family, Alex’s headache was healed, in fact, it had already started healing from the first of three days, and then slowly within three days, it was gone.
Alex on the fourth day went to Dr. Mary and thanked her for the advice which she gave, and he said that he will only come to her whenever there will be some kind of problem relating to health because he now trusts her.
Did you see what Dr. Alisa and Dr. Mary did here?
When Alex comes to Dr. Alisa, she immediately after hearing the patient’s problem, prescribed the pill to him. Neither Alex nor Dr. Alisa cared to find out the cause of the problem ‘Headache’. Alex just wanted an immediate solution and Dr. Alisa gave that pill, which didn’t work out in the end.
A pill is never a solution to every health problem, every time.
So, instead of straight providing pills to the patient, there is something called a ‘Discovery phase’ which has to be done. And this is what Dr. Mary did, she instead of straight providing the pills as a solution to the problem, she discovered the real cause of Alex’s problem. She may know some pills which would be given to Alex to heal his headache but she need to first confirm that if he has a headache and then find the root cause of the problem. Sometimes, what happens is the problem we actually assumed is not the actual problem when we talk to an expert of that problem’s field, but here Alex did had Headache. So, the first thing is confirmed that he has Headache and now Dr. Mary had to find the root cause of the problem, and she did it by asking lots of questions. By talking about Alex’s life, sudden changes and many more. She stayed in the discovery phase as long as possible to discover the cause of the problem, and when she finds out a cause, she came up with the solution of taking rest. And that’s what Alex himself realized while he was in the Discovery phase with Dr. Mary, he discovered what were the causes of his headache.
This is a serious point here, instead of just trying to sell our product/service as an Independent Business, Brand or Organization to the customer without knowing the actual problem which the customer is facing, we should first try to walk in the shoes of the customer and see the world from his/her eyes and then offer a solution which is needed. This can done by doing EMPATHY (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another). We should first be in a Discovery phase with the customer like Dr. Mary was with Alex and then try to help the customer in a genuine way by figuring out the actual problem he/she has and offer a solution and sometimes maybe the solution is not profitable in terms of money but it is in terms of trust, because now the customer trust you. Customer will feel that you have shown interest in their problem and you’re really interested in helping like Dr. Mary instead of just selling like Dr. Alisa.
To be interesting you have to be interested.
And Trust is much greater than Money because the customer will come back to you in the future and also will be the advocate of your business.
