No time to listen to a proposal?

We once ran, at the clients’ specific request, a cartoon in their newsletter. The scene was an ancient battlefield, a king brandishing a sword and wearing a suit of armour was being tapped on the shoulder by a knight trying to attract his attention. The caption was ‘I don’t want to see any crazy salesman. Can’t you see I have a battle to fight?’ In the background stood the salesman clutching a machine gun! We turn now to an article about overcoming TDD – Time Deficit Disorder. As the argument runs, businesses are down-sizing and the remaining staff are too burdened with keeping everything going, their time is over-scheduled with none spare to evaluate new propositions. It is an interesting concept TDD, or maybe its just difficult to engage in the right type of dialogue with a prospect anyway. So the task of the marketer is to convince the prospect it is worth allocating some time to listening – there might just be a solution to an existing problem. The approach needs to get quickly to the point – what are the benefits and are they relevant to the prospect. This is where the marketing skills are needed. To gain the attention in the first place, offer relevant benefits and make responding to the offer easy and quick to do.