Sounds like that last interaction with your company's new customer was one you wish was a a do-over. I understand when you say you were "as subtle as a trucker driver." Perhaps you can learn something from the non-tech sectors.
I don't know that I can speak well to the trucking sector, although my nephew is in the business and making a very good living. The biggest threat is self-driving truck convoys... one driver and six trucks following digitally. I learned from Tom Peters years ago that you can differentiate any commodity business with service [1]. It is the soft skills that often provide the value-add.
What soft skills do truckers and those in trades need?
For each, at either end of the transaction they deliver, is an interaction with a customer. That's personal; something AI and robotics can't do well. The human exchange should be all about the soft skills.
My brother and I were raised in New York, a part of the world known for abruptness and impatience. He worked for Sara Lee's meat division for years. He was deputy to the CIO. Many of his customers were small meat producers in the deep south. Once when he visited one, he pulled out his spreadsheets and began talking about the numbers.
His host said, without a small amount of indignation, "well you just want to get right down to it."
My brother caught himself, put down the papers and apologized. He then asked, "How's the family? Your son just began college, didn't he?"
They were off on a personal conversation that went from kids to fishing.
It lasted less than ten minutes, but it was not an aside; it reinforced that the business was first a relationship.
Imagine if a trucker had such a conversation with each loading dock foreman? Would that change his business? |