Selling your products or services – or ideas – can feel like a lonely experience. Many people feel like a lone candle in the darkness, trying to shine their light into a world which reflects nothing. No matter how much energy they put into their activities, there is little or no reaction.
Meanwhile, others use their energy to bring people together. Rather than radiating, they bind.
In contrast to the “always-be-pitching” approach of the radiators, the most effective way to build business-to-business sales is to focus on binding coalitions of people and organisations together.
This is a manifestation of customer-centric thinking: it is easier and more cost-effective to go to your prospects and influencers and explore their existing concerns and priorities than it is to dazzle them from a distance with your own priority. When the time is right for them, they will know you, and they will come to you.
Meanwhile, even the brightest candle, radiating all its energy alone, can burn out.