42 GERMINATION.CA SEPTEMBER 2018 PROCESSING EQUIPMENT WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN MORE AND TALK LESS Jason MacNevin, Owner, Can-Seed Equipment jmacnevin@canseedequip.com • canseedequip.com PART OF MY job involves sales, but if you’ve been reading this space, you’ll know I don’t ever want to be referred to as a salesman. A salesperson talks AT you. I prefer to talk WITH people, and most importantly, listen to them. Listening more and talking less is something I’ve learned over the years that’s helped me tremendously in my work, and it’s something I teach to my employees and to clients. Listening more and talking less has the follow- ing business benefits: • It helps people to trust you. People often find it very refreshing to just be listened to, rather than having some- one else interject every few seconds. It shows them that you really are interested in what they have to say, and not just trying to advance your own agenda. • It helps you change bad habits. The desire to talk is human nature. Ever notice when you’re having a conver- sation that you’re always waiting for your next opportu- nity to get a word in? It takes effort to fight the urge to talk when it would be better to keep listening, or even ask the person to tell you more. That takes discipline, but if you’re successful in doing it, you can prove to yourself that old habits don’t die so hard after all. We all have the ability to change old habits and fight our basic nature — what a great business lesson to learn! • It helps you understand your customers better. Every client has a different issue — the more you can learn from them, the more you can use that information later on to help them or even another customer. Being able to say, “One of my other customers had the same issue — this is what they did and this is a result” is powerful. I tell my employees that we’re not salespeople — we’re the furthest thing from it. We’re problem solvers. We sell equipment to solve problems, and if we’re successful in solving those problems, our customers make money and spend money with us. In business, that’s called success — and success often comes from using your mouth less and using your ears a lot more. SEED HEALTH & TESTING WHAT CAN A FOOD CART TEACH US ABOUT BUSINESS? Sarah Foster President and Senior Seed Analyst, 20/20 Seed Labs @Sarah2020labs • sarah@2020seedlabs.ca • 2020seedlabs.ca I RECENTLY saw something peculiar in Tokyo, Japan. There were five street food wagons lined up along a sidewalk downtown. I stood and watched while a steady stream of businesspeople went to the wagon at the end and all but ignored the others. What made the wagon at the end unique? Why was this one vendor getting so much attention when there were four others virtually deserted? Why stand in line at this specific vendor, when they could have gone to any of the others and had instant service? There’s a variety of possibilities, and they all have a lesson to teach about our own businesses. It could have been that the food cart on the end was new to the block, and people were just attracted by the novelty. Novelty can work in the short term, but you need to offer a unique service/product and be a good salesperson in order to keep people coming back. It’s also unlikely that customers loyal to another vendor would so blatantly flock to someone new and unfamiliar. I think it’s more likely that: The vendor at the end offered a product no one else did. If you provide a product or service that’s unique and can’t be bought anywhere else, you have an edge. Often this service or product doesn’t have to be dramatically different from others out there, but simply has a unique twist that makes it attractive to people. It also could have been that the food cart operator knew how to sell better than the rest. Being a good salesperson is not easy. It takes years of experience. You have to be a good communicator, and you have to understand your audi- ence (customers). If you know what they need and want, and you offer it to them in a positive way that helps them connect with you, you cultivate customer loyalty. All three of these possibilities play out every day in the business world, to varying degrees of success. The latter two are essential to having a successful business. The first can work in disrupting the marketplace and helping you stand out for a short period of time, but won’t help in the long run if you don’t have talent and expertise behind you.