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Business Rule #26:
Show Your Face
April 22, 2005
by Caroline Pfouts
Nobody ever learned anything by talking. Especially on the phone. People learn by listening and observing. The Magna team had their collective ears to the ground this week, and it paid off for them. They listened carefully to the Staples executives’ advice on what they wanted in a design for an office desk organizer. Tana Goertz immediately appreciated how important Staples’ guidance was. “They spelled it out for us.” All Staples wanted was an improvement on some existing office product, not a totally new design.
How did Magna get the inside scoop? From a face-to-face meeting. Donald Trump made a good point about meeting with people in person—you can’t do any better. Psychologists have found that, from birth, we have a strong emotional response to seeing faces. So to befriend a client, show your face. What’s more, if you’re selling something, it’s much harder for customers to say “no” in person. That’s one reason many companies spend a big part of their business-to-business marketing budgets on outside sales teams. They know the value of the personal touch.
Magna reaped all of these benefits and more. The Staples people not only explained what they wanted, they gave an example of a product that won in a similarly modeled competition that their company holds annually. Having a pattern on which to base their project gave Magna a huge advantage. They knew what a winning project looked like.
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In contrast, Alex Thomason, the Project Manager for the Net Worth team, just called his project in. He figured there was nothing he could get from meeting in person that he couldn’t get over the phone. He wanted to save time, when he should have been looking for direction. When the conference call disconnected and he couldn’t get the Staples executives back on the line, Alex knew he’d blown it. Rather than doing whatever it took to schedule another meeting, he acted like it wasn’t important. “They’re not our client; they’re just the judges.” In other words, who cares what they want. Why should we listen to them?
Because they are the judges. Just as customers decide who wins their business, the judges decide who wins the game. That’s why.
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If you’re selling something, it’s much harder for customers to say 'no' in person.
