You know what I was thinking?

You know what I was thinking? 

When my wife asks this, it means I’m heading to Home Depot or Lowes for a DIY project. But with our customers, co-workers, etc., the truth is that we don’t know what they’re thinking. No matter how long we’ve been in our industry, we simply can’t know what every customer is thinking. We don’t know what their experience is with our product or service and we don’t know what outcomes they want… unless we ask. And that’s the focus of this episode. 

Listen to this new 5-minute episode for some ideas on how to get your customers to value more of what you bring to the table. 

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

Want to see about having me come for private sales training, or a mastermind (bring together some industry friends to have me spend a day with you all)? Reach out to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or text or call +1.732.422.6362

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

• Apple Podcast: http://bit.ly/weddingbusinesssolutions
• YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
• Stitcher: http://bit.ly/wbsstitcher
• Google Podcast: http://bit.ly/wbsgoogle
• iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
• Pandora: http://bit.ly/wbspandora

©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Transcript

You know what I was thinking? Listen to this episode. See where I'm going. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This phrase, you know what I was thinking? There's kind of a secret code between my wife, and I'm not so secret. I've probably spoken about this, where if she says, you know what I was thinking? I'm already getting the car keys and I'm heading either to Home Depot or Lowe's. But that's not what I'm talking about with this episode. That's just kind of a fun thing that happens when she comes up with an idea for a home improvement project. 

But with our customers, with our family members, with our team members, people that we work with, work for, they work for us, we don't know what they're thinking, and we get ourselves in trouble a lot of the time because we think we know what they're thinking, but we actually don't. And that's why asking questions is always the better way. If you're not sure, don't assume we know that things you assume and you make a problem. Right. And why the book is called shut up and sell more is for that very reason that we don't know what somebody else is thinking. By asking better questions, we actually get to the root of what they're thinking and what they want. So personally, professionally, we have to remember that we don't know what someone else is thinking. And very often we think we do and we're wrong, and we start going down the path the wrong way. 

 And that's why some of the things that I speak about in my sales training very often are, instead of telling someone about something that you want to tell them, a feature of your product or your service is to phrase it in the form of a question, to see if they're interested in finding the answer. And if they want to find out more, then they're open to it. They've invited it. So give an example. If you're a caterer and you want to tell someone about that, your chefs can handle any kind of food allergies, food restrictions, food preferences, things like that. Rather than going into a dissertation about how you can handle gluten free and dairy free and keto and all kinds of allergies and preferences and vegan and vegetarian and all this stuff, just say to the host or the couple or whoever's planning the menu, do you or anyone that's going to be there have any food restrictions, preferences that we need to know about? And if they say, not that I know of, you say, well, if you let us know at least three weeks before the event, our chefs can accommodate absolutely anything. And that's it. You had a conversation for about ten or 15 seconds instead of going into this dissertation. 

 I had a client who had a very rustic what? Not had a very rustic venue, and it does not appear to be handicapped accessible. But it is. You just wouldn't see it unless you were taking that particular path. And rather than showing everyone where the handicapped parking and the elevator or the ramps or whatever it is that you have that can accommodate people with mobility issues, you can say to them, do you or any of your guests have mobility issues that we need to be aware of? And if they say yes, if so and so is in a wheelchair, crutches, has, you know, has a trouble with stairs, or whatever, you say, well, you know, we do have handicapped parking. We have an elevator. We have ramps. Everybody will be able to enjoy the entire wedding event, whatever it is. Would you like to see that? And if they say no, that's okay. 

 They take your word for it. But now they know. And if they say no, we don't know anybody that does. You say, well, if you find out somebody does, anybody, God forbid, has an accident or something, we do have handicapped parking, elevator ramps, all those things. So what else have you just been telling people that not everybody needs to know? And can you phrase that in a form of a question? Because, again, you don't know what they're thinking and in terms of the outcomes that they want. I've spoken about this. I've written about it in the books, actually. Got this from a client of mine, Kenny, up in Westchester, New York, with his rental company, that every time you get an inquiry, you want to ask three questions. 

 You want to know what the occasion is, you want to know who's coming, and you want to know what a successful outcome looks like, feels like, smells like, tastes like. What is that? And that applies if you do more than one type of event. If you only do weddings or if you only do corporate or only do fundraisers, well, then you know what the occasion is. But if you don't, asking that question lets them then tell you and then tell you more about it. So you know what I was thinking? What I was thinking is that if we all ask better questions, we'll get ourselves in a lot less trouble, we'll find out more about what our customers want, and we'll all be happier doing more business, more profitably. Hope that was helpful. Thanks. 

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks. 

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site: 

• Apple Podcast: http://bit.ly/weddingbusinesssolutions 
• YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8 
• Stitcher:  http://bit.ly/wbsstitcher 
• Google Podcast: http://bit.ly/wbsgoogle 
• iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic 
• Pandora: http://bit.ly/wbspandora 

©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com