True But Useless

I am currently reading Chip and Dan Heath's "Switch." This is an excellent book on executing and motivating change. In their book they refer to the danger of focusing on things that are "TBU" True But Useless. TBU includes complaining about situations you can't change (i.e. complaining about the state of the national economy), it is true that the economy is a challenge but talking about it is useless. Talking about the economy will not make things better, planning to sell through this challenge will. You also want to avoid wasting time on a call talking about things that are TBU. An example of this would be explaining how ads are sent to the printer, this may interest you, but this information is useless to the prospect. They just want to know that their ad will appear in the paper and that it will be correct. You have limited time in front of a customer so you want to spend it talking about things that improve your chance of making a sale.

Keep Smiling, Keep Selling!

Thanks Jim Busch