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How a Subtle Change of Approach Improves Results
By Robert Skrob | October 19, 2011
I grew up around horses. Lucky enough to have my own horse, I rode for years, competing in hunter jumping shows and dressage. Through this experience, I learned how to observe body language. A skin twitch tells me about a horse’s thoughts that are missed by most people.
My daughter has horse fever. She loves spending time at the barn and at riding lessons. While my parents still have thoroughbred horses, I don’t have any. My daughter takes lessons at a farm on the outskirts of town.
When my wife was out of town, it was my turn to take Samantha for her lesson.
At the farm, the riding horses are kept in a pasture for most of the day. They even feed them in the pasture, dumping their grain and hay in field buckets, so the horses don’t have to go to the barn at all. The only time these animals go to the barn is for riding lessons. Horses are quick to figure this out.
Imagine eating a snack in a sunny field, minding your own business, when you see a child walking up to you with a halter and a lead rope. Sure, she’s also got a bucket with a handful of feed, but that halter means an hour of work. What would you choose? An hour of sweaty work, or an afternoon of eating in the pasture?
That gets me to the problem. As Samantha walks toward the horse, it simply lifts its head and trots away to the other end of the pasture. Before Samantha can walk over there, the horse doubles back to where she was grazing before. You’ll never chase down a horse that doesn’t want to get caught.
My daughter returned to the barn without a horse, crying, covered in sweat and with an empty feed bucket. As the fearless dad, I was drafted into service. My years of horse sense paid off. I taught Samantha my horse wrangling strategy. It’s less about horse catching and more like horse attraction.
Although you walk into the pasture with the same tools—halter, lead rope and a bucket with a handful of feed—you do it in a different way.
I taught Samantha to walk past the horse. You cross its path, about 10 feet in front of it as it grazes. But you always keep your eyes straight ahead, never looking at the horse. When you get about 12 to 15 feet past the horse, you stop. Just stand there, looking ahead.
Horses have the intellect of a 3-year-old child, except with less patience and more curiosity. As we stand under the sun, looking ahead toward a clump of trees near the fence line, I ask Samantha to count to 30. Before she gets to 16, the horse walks up to us and nuzzles Samantha on the shoulder.
Samantha gives the mare a handful of feed and slips the halter over her ears. Then, we lead the horse through the pasture to the barn for the lesson.
Customers are skittish creatures. Just as horses are conditioned to look out for predators lurking in the bushes, customers are trained that marketers are predators. At the first sign of someone selling something, they slam down the phone, trash the envelope or fast forward the TiVo®.
Are you tired of chasing your customers from one end of the pasture to the other? Even though the tools are the same, the difference between chasing customers and having them come to you is a subtle change of approach.
While none of us has time for another sales pitch, we willingly spend time investigating someone or something that piques our curiosity. You can create that curiosity by becoming the talk of your niche. Members begin to ask themselves and each other, “I keep hearing this name; who is she?” This comes through advertising, publishing articles, public speaking and attending industry events. These give you the opportunity to become talked about and to become known. Then, customers will begin to seek you out.
By generating curiosity that you have something they want instead of immediately going after the sale, you can have the horse come to you. But, above all, you cannot forget, you have to leave the barn to catch the horse. How are you going to put yourself in front of new customer prospects today?
What do you think? Do you have any examples of ways you generated curiosity? Or, do you disagree and have a better way? Visit the page How a Subtle Change of Approach Improves Results, and scroll down to the bottom of the page to leave me a comment. I read every comment and reply when appropriate.
Best wishes,
Robert Skrob
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