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SYNC w/ Jim Cathcart 05/18/2010 Summary

Relationship Selling
Many of us are becoming increasingly aware of the monumental role relationships play in our lives. Some of us would even go so far as to say with great confidence that our lives are defined by our relationships. Jim Cathcart—one of the world’s top 22 professional speakers, best-selling author of The Acorn Principal, and an Advisor to the School of Business at Pepperdine University—is one such man. His approach to business is defined by what he refers to as relationship selling—the assumption that business should be an act of friendship in which we can make others lives better, profitably. Your life and mine are a series of relationships, which are either assets or liabilities, says Cathcart. “If you change the number, quality, quantity, or nature of your relationships, you change your life,” he says. In this vein, Cathcart suggests that we may determine and achieve the desired outcome for each relationship by asking ourselves two questions: 1) “What do I want?” 2)”What does he or she want?” Then, he says, we know the rules for that relationship. In business, rather that trying to persuade people to buy our products or ideas, we can adjust our mindset to the ways in which those people might truly benefit from what we have to offer. In doing this, we become problem solvers, friends, and partners, rather than yesterday’s sales(wo)men.

Apple vs. PC
Cathcart: At Apple the salespeople ask me what I do, and then find a product to fit my needs. The PC salespeople are focused on the technology and the product. I don’t care about that.

Why vs. How
The “Why?” drives it. The “How?” is the way it functions. To get ahead in any organization, focus on the reason for the organization. The person who asks “why?” is always the “how?” person’s boss.

The Grandma Factor: Why McDonald’s Won His Heart
Cathcart went to McDonald’s one morning to get an Egg McMuffin. A spry older lady named Marilyn worked there. “Good Morning,” she said to him. “What’s your name?” “Excuse me?” Cathcart said, thinking he must have misheard her.
“What’s your name,” she repeated with a smile. “Don’t you remember.”
“Jim Cathcart,” he replied, still taken back that she would ask.
Each morning Jim would go to order his Egg McMuffin, and Marilyn would serve him.
One day he noticed busses in the parking lot, and walked in to a crowd of people and a line almost out the door.
After standing there for a couple minutes, he heard Marilyn call out his name.
“Mr. Cathcart,” she said. “Come on up.”
Surprised, he walked proudly to the front of the line.
“Your breakfast is ready,” she continued, handing him his Egg McMuffin. “It’s on the house today.”
Cathcart went to that McDonald’s every day for six years, because Marilyn made him feel special when he went.

Quotes

“Ask how and you’ll always have a job. Ask why and you’ll always be their boss.”
“When trust is high enough, selling is not required.”
“It’s not who you know, it’s who is happy to know you.”
“People remember how you made them feel.”
“Learn to do things when they need to be done, when you don’t feel like doing them, and still do a great job.”
“Be in the business of keeping those around you in the right frame of mind.”
“Our purpose is to make others’ lives better. Live it and you’ll never let yourself down.”

Universal Human Needs