Early one morning, I pulled up to Rick’s tire sales shop, shut off my truck, and began to gather myself. Rick had agreed to meet me early at his shop for a one-on-one referral meeting. I had met Rick at a networking event, so this concept of a one-on-one meeting was something he was familiar with, and maybe he was hoping I might refer business to him. As I gathered myself, I was full of doubt.

I had never been to his store, and our meeting was early enough that the store was not open. It was not obvious to me where to meet him. He had told me to grab his cell number from the networking event, but I had not done so. It felt too aggressive (or something). So I walked around the property, and soon enough, someone drove up and opened the building. It was not Rick.

He told me Rick is usually on time for such meetings, which cast doubt into my mind about whether he even remembered the meeting. I should have gotten his cell number. It was unclear whether the employee was calling Rick, so I passively sat in the waiting room and watched a sleepy tech attempt to brew some coffee in the Keurig machine. It didn’t go well.

Soon, Rick burst into the waiting room, shook my outstretched hand, and blurted, “I didn’t know you were here.” The way he said it didn’t sound apologetic, but instead, slightly accusatory. He led me through the work bays, then outside for a minute, and then we weaved back into an office space inaccessible to the public. He was obviously irritated. There was a desk with a computer (not his desk), and he tried to clear it enough that he could see me if I sat on the other side.

“Go ahead. Try to sell me something,” I heard him silently say. I only sold him on one thing: that he might meet with me again. I left the meeting feeling like I had just added to his list of problems and that the best thing I could do to help was get off his to-do list. I felt like my ten-year-old self when I asked my dad if I could help him work on something, and without looking at me, he said, “Yeah, get out of the way.”

Debriefing the meeting later with my partner, I realized three important truths that would have completely changed the nature of my meeting with Rick.

His Irritation Should Have Been a Green Light

Let’s say you sell mud solutions, and when you visit a potential buyer, he is covered head to toe in mud and can hardly move. Or you have a fishing solution, but your potential buyer is constantly interrupted by bobbers plunging below the watery surface. My ideal client is agitated. They have a vision beyond their current capacity. The key is to remember I am not part of the problem. I am part of the solution.

Tension is an essential element of making any sale. If there is no tension, there is no problem and no need to sell a solution. The problem is that tension signals a red light for many of us. Tension indicates that we should tread lightly and maybe even back away slowly. We secretly hope the potential client will roll out a red carpet or sit back comfortably to hear our spiel. When they show irritation, our 10-year-old selves want to shrink into the woodwork.

I must reprogram my brain to read the potential client’s tension as my ally. My potential client may initially read me as part of the problem, but I have a few minutes to change his mind. The tension is what will drive the person to consider my proposition. I can walk away from his tension, but he lives with it every moment of every day.

My Presence Was an Incredible Gift to Him

One day, I was at a nursing home, and we brought a dozen teenagers to do a craft with the residents. One woman in a wheelchair started telling various people that she wanted to go home. One after the other, they would ask her, “Oh, do you want to return to your room?” She would shake her head and look like she was about to cry. I approached the woman and when she told me, “I want to go home.” I looked her right in the eyes and said, “Wouldn’t that be great if you could.” She looked at me with a grateful smile that communicated: “You understand me!”

Not many people understand the issues of my potential client. She may have many employees, but they see different problems than hers. Whether I have any solutions at all, it is a gift just to be understood. At first, my greatest value is just to help her better understand the problem. How can we clarify her goals? How can we align the staff to meet those goals best? How can we motivate the staff to run after those goals?

There is great comfort in being understood, in knowing that you’re not alone. My presence in a leader’s life is a rare gift that is hard to find. I need to be comfortable knowing that. For some reason, there is often discomfort when assuming you belong before someone invites you into that position. I need to assume a quiet confidence that my client is thirsty and, thank God, I have water.

The Sale Should Have Been My Last Thought

The elephant in the room was that I was the one who had a problem. My problem was that I needed a sale. The potential client needed to be convinced that whatever I was selling was worth the high price I was asking him to pay. The focus was on me rather than on where it should have been, on him.

My mindset should have been that the deal was already done. We needed to start doing the work: identifying the preferred future, removing the obstacles between here and there, and developing an accountable action plan to move him toward the goal. The real work of the sale was for me to begin the coaching process, for which I am well-trained.

The sales call should be so helpful that the potential client asks, “Can you come back and do this again?” Of course, I would be happy to come back. My sole purpose for coming was so that I could come back. The next step is to give the potential client a few proposals for formalizing this relationship.

Conclusion

My approach to Rick was wrong from the start. Rick did not need a salesperson in his office; he needed a confidant, a colleague, and a coach. The ironic part is that I am all of those things and not really much of a salesperson at all. The first thing I did wrong was not getting Rick’s cell number. He had offered it to me, but I did not take it for whatever reason. I refused to step into whatever level he was offering.

Sometimes, when we hear that we need a mindset shift, it sounds like magic—if only we thought about the situation differently. But almost always, the mindset shift fixes the situation into reality. Think about the parent who doesn’t know what to do with their precocious child, as if this is a problem without any solution. All the while, the parent controls all of the resources. The parent has all the power but instead imagines that they have no power at all.

I have been blessed with experiences, knowledge, and a particular skill set ideally aligned with helping leaders who want to expand their current capacity. Yet, at times, I act like I don’t have any reason to be in the room with such a leader. The mindset shift I need is simply an alignment with reality, sweeping away the fantasy that I don’t belong. It isn’t the potential client I need to convince—it’s me!

What will it take to convince you to align with the reality of how you can best serve your potential clients?