Nobody Wants to Meet for Lunch

Lunch was the way business got done. But it’s not the way of the world these days in a connected economy. A few reasons people don’t want to meet you:

• It’s going to take 3 hours. Maybe an hour lunch, but fighting traffic, getting out of a groove and getting back into a groove is a lot of time.
• We can access every vendor out there we want from Google and social media.
• We can educate ourselves.
• Our inboxes are overwhelming.
• We build relationships with our thumbs.

We know the cost of time and attention and when we have demands for proposals, project deadlines and our personal lives, it’s hard to justify lunch. It may serve you well to build a relationship but we are counting the cost of a wasted day of productivity.

So, if nobody wants to meet for lunch like they used to, how about thinking about how to become even more valuable. You have to stand out by getting personal and being an increasing person who puts value in front of people consistently and with insight.

Take that hour lunch and use the hour to make the person you want to connect with become more successful. You will do that by getting them to think about things they may not have considered or connecting them with people they need to know. This takes precedence over selling your product to them directly. You have to get to know them and think about their problems.

Selling with intentionality and care is hard to do when we are pulled to treat everyone like a commodity. Don’t do it. Go the other direction and be human by using your creativity and your ideas to lead on discussions you haven’t had before.

It’s the way selling is done today. It’s still personal. It’s just delivered differently.

Want to learn how to do this? Ping me.