Be the Expert: The Magic Wand Question That Wins Retainers
Your potential new customer has a problem. Solve that problem, and they will put you on retainer and pay you money on a regular basis. That is the secret to sales, right there. Solve the problem.
And yes, sales is a game — a game you need to win. So if you are going to win this game, what do you need? You need to know what the problem is.
Stop telling them about yourself
You do not need to tell them what you do. You do not need to tell them what you have done. You do not need to tell them what you are best at. Once you start talking about any of those things, you stand a very good chance of losing the sale — losing the client, losing the retainer, losing the money. A lost client is lost money. And if they walk across State Circle to another shop in Annapolis, or to somebody in Prince George's County, Baltimore, or D.C., now somebody else has your retainer. That money should be buying your wife or your husband that special something. It is your money, and if you do not get it, that is a real loss.
So how do you get the money? You get it by being the expert. You do not tell them what you can do. You ask them what they need. You ask them what the problem is.
The magic wand question
Sometimes they are not good at articulating exactly what the problem is. So I love using the magic wand question. It goes something like this:
“Bill, go back to your office today. Look at your office, look at your sales, look at your issues, look at everything you have got to deal with. Look at your business today. Now let's say you have a magic wand that you can use one time. What would you change at your business with that magic wand?”
To some people this is going to sound foolish — why are we talking about magic wands that do not exist when we should be telling them what a great company we are? That is the point. They do not care what you are good at. They do not really care that you want the profit. They know you want the money. They know you want a retainer. That is what they are talking to you about. But they do not really care whether you get it or not, or whether it goes across the street or to any other shop in town. That is the game. They do not care.
The magic wand works because it forces them to name the problem. And here is a secret of human nature: they know you are a government relations specialist — popularly known as a lobbyist. They know what you do, so that is going to focus them on what they need. They are likely to come back and say they are concerned about procurement, or they have land use issues coming up, or any of a million things — but they are not likely to tell you the convertible roof canvas is cracking on their vintage XKE Jaguar. They are going to tell you something in your wheelhouse. And at that point they have handed you the account, because all you have to do is solve that problem. Whether they have internalized it or not, they are ready to write the retainer check.
The 20-80 rule
That is what this is all about. You solve the problem, they write the retainer check. Everybody wants to go in and tell the client about problems they solved. She does not really care — if it is not her problem. I live my life by laws, and one of Barry's laws is: Nobody Really Cares. So if we have eliminated that nobody cares, then shut up and listen.
We are back to the same 80/20 issue everybody talks about in sales. But the part they do not quite understand is that it is really the 20-80 rule: 20 percent of the conversation is you asking questions. 80 percent of the conversation is them answering the questions.
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