The Key Elements of the Theory of Preeminence

1. Refer to customers as clients.
2. You are a leader who the clients follow to the best decision.
3. Have a point of view.
4. Take your clients into the future.
5. Fall in love with your client.
6. Have massive empathy.
7. Create clarity, focus, and certainty for your client.
8. Form a value-based relationship.
9. It’s only a matter of time before money exchanges start giving value from the first moment.

In every relationship, think of your client first and your business second. This takes the onus off the client to make a decision between companies because you have elevated your relationship. The only choice is your service/product because you have become and advisor with their best interests above your own. They are getting their win first, you are earning their business second.  

Let’s take a deeper dive into the Theory of Preeminence and discuss the main concepts this sales philosophy tries to teach us about the client and company relationship.

Show Empathy for your Clients

Empathy is the underlying emotion at the core of the theory of preeminence and perhaps the single word you could use to define it.  

What benefits are gained from showing empathy to a client? First, start by putting yourself in the shoes of the client, they often know very little about your product, or your company. By showing them empathy or simply understanding where they come from you can begin to see the gaps in their knowledge.

When you see the gaps, you can fill them, and this puts you in the position of a leader. Leaders can then show or advise others how on factual solutions. After all, we trust leaders, and our goal is to get the client to trust you, not just sell them something.

Another trait of leaders is to act as visionaries. Help the client imagine the truth of things or put their feelings into words. Your goal is to get them to realize you are putting them before your own profits. That is another important realization you will need to come to terms with as a business owner, the enrichment of your customers over yourself. 

You want to elevate your client because this allows you to build that lasting relationship. Not only do you lift them up, but you also put them at the center of your business. A client-focused business allows the company to soar to new levels of success. This success is gained by treating every hour, every action, every dialogue, and every contact with each client, as a chance to yield benefit for the client. 

Future Pacing

To help sell your product or service more effectively, you need to frame it as the solution to the problem the client is feeling. Try both rationally and emotionally framing the problem for them and to achieve this affinity with the customer use what is called Future Pacing. 

Future Pacing is when you take your client into the future and have them imagine what their life will look like with your company’s product/service. You are showing them how the product or service works on their behalf. While you have the client thinking about the future, reassure them and motivate them to use the solution because it will make their life easier/better/less stressful. 

Finally, acknowledge the reality of human nature and the shared experience of other people just like them who have been in the same situation. Draw them a picture, and appeal to both the emotional and rational aspects of what they are experiencing.

Your Business is Bigger than Profits 

Believe in the reality that your business stands for a lot more than money. If you are in business to simply generate profit, so you can buy a bigger home or a bigger boat, you are selling yourself and your business short. Instead, believe that your business is your life’s investment and that of your employees too. The staff working for you, share and fail in the business’s success just as much as you. 

A recognition of the livelihood of your business and its dependence on satisfied clients will produce passion within your organization. Your clients will see and feel the dedication and be happy to do business with you. This turns your company into something profound and makes you the owner, feel much prouder about what you do. 

Fall in Love with Your Clients 

Love thy neighbor is an old teaching, and despite the religious subtext, it rings true in how you should be doing business, and how you should be loving your clients like a dear friend though they are actually strangers.

You love your clients by showing them that their inaction towards their problems is far less desirable than acting and solving them. You are describing to the client how the solution benefits them more than it does your company and that you are merely the provider of it. This goes back to the reason we call them clients and not customers. We call them clients because it creates a stronger, closer bond with them and fosters a relationship based on authority and respect because they see you are not trying to trick them into buying something useless. 

What normally happens in business is companies love their products/services thinking they are the best. However, making a change from a product-centric to a client-centric mindset elevates your company to a higher purpose. You would never think of a doctor as selling you something, they merely recommend your medical options. This is what you are doing, you are now protecting your client’s interests and extending advantages to them they would otherwise miss. 

Remember you are a value generator and creator within your company. This is not only for your clients but also for your staff too. A business owner needs their staff to rally behind your lofty goal of a business that focuses on client enrichment above all else. 

How to Help Your Clients Think

The first step is to create a process for delivering your product or services within your company in a consistent manner. After this process is created, it will then be easier to walk clients through your sales process and break it down into simple steps.

Again, this will help you future pace with them and make the client understand that you are not starting and stopping a project with them, but bringing them into your continual process of delivering quality products/services to them. In a way you are adding drama to the sale, instead of just selling them something, you show the client your product is deeply rooted in your company.

What you are doing is slowly educating and acting as an authority on the subject and creating that lasting effect on the client. It allows them to come to their own conclusion but only once you have guided them to see the light of the future. It is much more powerful if the customer commits without being pushed by sales tricks but instead feels empowered. This empowerment is good since people are resilient to new ideas, and that is why you first need to establish a general set of facts, this way your client can think through the ideas you present to them on their own. When they do go ahead, it creates that lasting bond we have been speaking of. 

Questions Every Business Owner Should Ask Themselves
These questions are a test to see if you need the Theory of Preeminence in your company. 

1. Do you feel tired? 
2. Have you lost control? 
3. Do the smallest thing limit you?
4. Are your ads failing?
5. Do you have to lower yourself to compete? 
6. Does your client view you as a commodity?

If you are begrudgingly nodding your head to any of these questions, then you are abdicating control of your business and it is time to make major changes.