Page 15 - SMILE January 2019

EXPERTISE
2019 – The year of the relationship

exactly what each other is looking for by way of introductions and referrals. Think of it as an education process, you are both trying to

educate each other about your businesses. Do bear in mind though that the role of the introducer is simply to introduce with confidence
and enthusiasm not to close the deal. The person introduced is far better equipped to assess a potential client needs and demonstrate

how they can satisfy them, hopefully resulting in business happening between the two parties.

Plan your insights
To get the most out of an insight meeting it is worth spending a bit of time thinking through what kind of questions and

information to include. Here are our top tips on what to ask them and the questions you should have the answers to!

• What results do you deliver to your clients?
• Think about the benefits you deliver, the pain you remove and the potentially unpleasant situations you prevent.

• Why should I have confidence in you?

• What are you the expert in and how can you demonstrate that? Stories of what you have done are powerful.

• What differentiates you?
• What do you do differently and how? If we can reply ‘so what’ then it’s not a compelling differentiator.

• Avoid saying things like “we provide exceptional customer service”. Firstly that should be a given and secondly everyone says

that and it has little impact. Saying something like “on average our members stay with us for 5 years or more and the norm in our
industry is 3” will differentiate you.

• What does your ideal client look like?

• Describe an ideal client – what do they look like? This is something you may have already done for your marketing and if not will

be useful to you going forward.