My fellow BNI director Brian Noble (Achievement Discoveries) came up with a great quote the other day. He said: “Don’t waste time developing the swan when you should be selling the duck”.
Brian was referring to the fact that many of us spend too much time fine-tuning and building-up a product or service offering, when we should be out selling the basics.
I think it’s an expression that can also be applied to how we sell to customers and our networks.
Too often we will stand up and try to push the swan, when we should just stand up and sell the duck.
Time is short; we’re competing with heaps of other messages and the internal dialogues of our ‘listeners’.
Keep your presentation – especially your referral request – precise, simple and specific.
Effective selling – whether face-to-face, your elevator speech or 60 second presentation – is not a public speaking competition. Your job is to be heard, understood and acted upon.
Sell the duck! It’s a foot in the door. Once you have a relationship, then you can go after the swan.
