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They Didn’t Get It… And Other Rationalizations

There is no there, there. Gertrude Stein might as well been talking about technology pitches of all kinds and not Oakland (or the Oakland Raiders). I still hear the phrase, “they didn’t get it.” In fact I realize now that when someone says the phrase that the audience, person or whomever “does not get it” it really means in all likelihood the audience is not open for business on that topic.

Open for business. What a simple straightforward qualifier for any interaction predicated on a commerce taking place as the desired outcome. For those times where a person does not get there is a person or persons who are open for business on your topic. Let me explain.

Miscommunications are the standard as far as forms of communication in the tech business. Often the result is too much discussion generated on that take on a life of their own and simply never seemed to get resolved. Often both the sender of the message and the receiver cannot even agree on what it was they are talking about; see Definitional Specificity approach to communicating.

My take is simple; in order to effectively have a complete communication cycle i.e. send-receive-understand-feedback-send-receive-understand, both parties need to have their lines open and need to be open for business on the particular issue that is “on the line.” Whoa, talk about clouds parting, open for business; come on in.

It works. One of the sales classes I teach is predicated on establishing if your target customer is in fact open for business to review, discuss, research, see, evaluate or otherwise engage on your solution. The results are remarkable. And this is a straightforward test. Is it of interest? Is this an area you are looking into?

Now purist may argue closed ended questions are a no-no. I disagree. There are millions of decision makers in companies of all sizes, and finding those that are “open for business” on your solution is the challenge. Anyone talking head can pitch; effective talking heads find a receptive audience and focus their efforts on working with them.
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