The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...
If speed and change are two key drivers of business today, then a third one must also be adaptability.
I was reminded of this recently, reading an article about Steve Jobs, “The Last Pitchman” in Bloomberg Businessweek. Jobs is known for many things: his great presentation skills, his amazingly cool products, and the almost manic secrecy and attendant drama he brings to the launch of every new Apple product. You will recall that that game plan was seriously challenged recently with the iPhone4, when a junior Apple engineer left a prototype on the then-unreleased iPhone4 in a California bar. Gizmodo, a popular tech blog got its hands on the device and broadcast the news about all its exciting features--which meant that there was little left for Jobs to reveal at the Apple launch event itself.
What was he going to do? What was he going to say?!
Jobs adapted to the totally unexpected situation by opening with the perfect Gizmodo incident quip. He said, “Stop me if you've seen this before”—and then demonstrated what he called “the most precise, beautiful thing we’ve ever designed.” His immediate and humorous acknowledgment of what had happened returned the show to Jobs and he had his audience’s undivided attention again.
Why do I bring this up?
Because I am constantly dismayed by sales people and other executives who seem to operate on automatic pilot when they fail to adapt to the cues and unexpected events that come at them during a presentation. This rigidity may come from fear, or lack of confidence, or lack of product/industry knowledge, but whatever the cause, the net result is to alienate a buyer/listener because you are basically saying "I don't care about you." Here are just three basic examples of “Failure to Adapt.”
Panicking in the face of changed needs. When a prospect says the needs have changed, some people plow through their presentation anyway, hoping that something they say will resonate. A waste of time and a demonstration to your buyer that you are not listening to him/her. It is wiser to adapt to this unexpected turn of events, put your prepared remarks/presentation away, ask what has changed, and be prepared to, again, adapt to what you hear. If you can still make your remarks work, fine. If not, ask for another meeting to present new ideas based on the changed needs.
Telling a client who expresses interest in Topic X to “wait” until you get there. Hey,who is buying and who is selling here?The client isn’t listening to your information in the order you planned? Adapt and either jump right to Topic X or re-assure the listener that Topic X will make more sense once he sees the background to it, or give a short response about Topic X and promise that you will be sure to go into greater detail in a minute. Then, check if that is all right. If it isn’t, adapt and jump to X.
Going past expected meeting time to get all your points in. You will never be punished for ending a meeting earlier than expected, but you will incur eternal wrath for keeping people at the table a minute longer than they signed on for. When time gets shortened, adapt and either pull out the salient points in the remaining time or ask for another meeting.
Adapt or die is a rule of nature. It applies equally to business relationships. The failure to adapt says more about how you view your buyer/listener than all the slides you brought in your deck.
Execution is everything. Make What You Say Pay!
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