This is a message for all of my colleagues out there who work in the area of professional development and training, consultancy, coaching and mentoring.
As professionals and business owners our professional or industry knowledge is important. People expect us to know what we are talking about. They expect that we are someone they can trust to provide us with a service or product they want and to have all the required knowledge about it.
Have you noticed, however, that it’s not always the cleverest, the ones who’ve done the most training or got the most qualifications who are most successful?
Once we became the preferred service provider solely on the basis of our industry experience or the fact that we were highly qualified. If you’d been in business for a long time or if you had multiple university degrees, you had to be the go to person. That’s no longer the case.
People now want, as well, or even more so, someone they can trust.
They want someone who will listen to them and try and understand their needs and wants.
They want someone who understands the outcome they are trying to achieve with a product or service.
They want someone who genuinely cares about them and getting the best result for them.
They want someone who provides service second to none.
They want someone with good Soft Skills – good interpersonal, communication and people skills.
They Will Then Do Business With Us.
There’s a frequently quoted comment from Maya Angelou that is related to what we are talking about here.
People will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget
how you made them feel.
So ask yourself: what do I need to do, so that every client or customer I meet, feels that I really care about them? What do I need to change in myself so that they know that I am deeply committed to helping them achieve what is most important for them?
When we focus on our clients and customers in this way, they grow to KNOW, LIKE and TRUST us and then they will work with us and engage our services, buy our products.
So the message is, your Soft Skills are as important as your hard technical skills in serving our clients and customers.
PS: And this is equally applicable to all you leaders and managers out there. If you want to get the best from your people, show them how much you care.
