Nobody likes to feel lost. 😰

I went to St. Lucia last week to celebrate my 10-year anniversary with my wife, Katie.

Needless to say, it was absolutely amazing.

We stayed at the Ladera Resort which sits on top of a hill and looks at the Piton mountains.

Way down at the base of the mountain sits a beach resort called Sugar Beach.

Each day, a shuttle runs from Ladera to Sugar Beach, offering guests a refreshing change of scenery.

When we arrived, we felt a bit lost. They handed us a blue towel and dropped us off without much instruction.

Fortunately, we ran into a Sugar Beach hostess who pointed us toward the beach. We kept wandering until we finally made it all the way down.

Just as we started to find our way, a Sugar Beach employee approached us. He explained that the seats with umbrellas cost $100 per person for the day but noted we could use some free chairs further down the beach.

As we moved along to check out the other chairs, a local man called out, “Ladera!” - as if trying to help us find our way.

With our blue towels and lost looks, we must have been easy to spot.

He introduced himself as “Richard, the Party Guy” and immediately launched into a conversation - asking how many days we had left on the island and what plans we’d made.

Then he dove straight into a pitch about the amazing adventure he could take us on - a well-rehearsed script full of unique experiences and even a “Kodak moment.”

Turns out he wasn't there to help us; he was there to sell us an excursion.

My wife couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I smiled, thanked him, and said we planned to relax for the day but might consider his trip another time.

Our clients are lost and looking for help. 👀

Later on, I started thinking about how Richard could have been more effective at selling adventures and how it might relate to your business...

• 🙋‍♂️ When you're lost, people can easily grab your attention if they appear to have direction for you. I walked right over to Richard because he called out "Ladera" and I thought he was directing us where to go. He quickly built (shallow) rapport that got my attention by using my resort's name. Richard knew who he was looking for and how to immediately get their attention. Do you know the same for your prospects?
  
  
• 🛟 Before pitching anything, you're better off building trust by providing value and asking more questions. If Richard had started off with the same questions about our stay to learn more about the situation and then shifted to helping us find our seats while giving us an overview of the beach, we would have trusted him as our guide at the beach and potentially been more receptive to his pitch later on. Leads can come to you and appear to know what they want - putting you into order-taking mode. But you have to resist and find a way to provide real value before attempting to solving their problem by selling something.
  
  
• 😵‍💫 The "kitchen sink" pitch feels like it should resonate at some point, but generally just overwhelms your prospects and loses the sale. Richard tried to make the adventure appeal to us by going through all the different things we'd do - hoping one would be the tipping point for us to say yes. You could tell it was the same script he used with everyone. But Richard would have been far more effective taking his time and asking more questions to find out what we might like - then shifting to the adventure that fits best.
  
  
• 🎲 Play a longer game. Richard plays a short game. Every day, he tries to get people signed up for excursions with one pitch. He has some reviews on Trip Advisor, but what if Richard played the game of getting mentioned the most in reviews as the go-to guide for the best adventures and featured on social media posts? He'd shift from selling to brand building. He'd do things to wow the people around him and be effective at getting reviews and pictures so that people would seek him out rather than be sucked into a pitch they weren't expecting that probably doesn't convert that well. 
  
  
• 🦚 Draw people to you by being uniquely yourself. Richard didn't sell many excursions while we were there. Rather, the guy who had the best success from what we saw was Blaze's boat bar. It was a uniquely decorated boat blasting 90's country and selling drinks out of the back. He wasn't pushing his product on people - he was drawing them to him by positioning himself on the beach, standing out, and being attractive. What silly/weird/fun part of you do you need to let out to attract the clients you want more of?
   

Here's to more success with your clients and finding inspiration everywhere you look! 🚀