Jeff Harrison explains why business owners rush to pitch solutions before understanding what prospects actually need. He uses a scooter ride offer to show how entrepreneurs default to their own services, like a hammer seeing every problem as a nail. Listen first, then meet people where they are.
So I'm out for a walk this morning, and as I'm walking, I'm kind of nearing the end of my walk. I'm probably half a mile from my destination, and I hear someone coming up behind me on a little scooter or a motorcycle, and it slows down. And I look over and it's somebody I know, and he says, "Hey, do you want a ride?" And all of a sudden, it struck me as like, most of us as business owners, we do that. Hey, my name is Jeff Harrison with SwingPoint Media, and I own a company, or excuse me, I own a company called SwingPoint Media, and welcome to The Local Voice. Today, this struck me as something that, hey, I'm guilty of, and I want you to ask yourself, are you guilty of this? A friend of mine, Andrew, he has a saying. He says, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Now, back to the gentleman who stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. He had a solution to what he thought was my problem. I was walking. So he asked me if, he could give me a ride. Well, a lot of times we have a solution, and anytime we see someone who looks like they have the problem we can solve, what do we do? We immediately use the hammer and say, "Hey, I've got a solution. Get on the back," whatever.
