Reed, an advisor in LA, was telling me about his frustrations with a doctor-lawyer couple. He thought they were already his clients, but after leaving several messages for the husband to set up a time to meet with them, he had not gotten a response.
“I finally had a great conversation with his wife, and I told her I had been trying to reach him to schedule a time to see them,” he said. “But she told me that because of his schedule, I’d have to speak with him. So I was right back at square one.”
“These are clients who are obviously not jumping up and down at the idea of meeting with you,” I observed. “Do they know why you want to see them?”
“Well, no,” he responded.
“Then why should they want to see you?” I asked, “You don’t have a close relationship with them and it looks like they’re pretty busy.”
“But I have this great product I want to convert them to,” Reed explained.
“OK. That’s a good reason to see them. But they don’t know that, do they? And even if they did, why would they want to see you to buy another product you think is great?”
“I guess there’s no good reason,” he conceded. So, I pressed him a little more.