Serving Professionals is a Choice

First sentence I read today: A professional is going to buy from someone like you. (I believe you Seth Godin).

A professional has a process, asks unique questions, is curious about unique ideas, and knows how to be to discover your service, product, does or does not improve their situation. Seth wrote, “A professional isn’t going to think she can do it herself…”. Amateurs typically don’t follow the same principles. Amateurs ask friends for advice. Amateurs compare you to whatever they know and they compare your price to free.

We’re all amateurs in somethings, and by amateur I mean we think we can do what professionals do for less. (Hang drywall, put in a faucet, paint, change oil, drop a tree, you know, easy stuff.) Amateurs buy and sell real estate. They don’t know what they don’t know so anything they do looks like success. I once was told, “We’re not using a Realtor, our price is $220,000 and we’re not negotiating.” My client bought the house for the asking price and instantly gained $55,000 in equity.

Building a business to serve professionals is worth the effort. Knowing you’re going to meet with an amateur when you’re expecting a professional is easy to do. So, why do we still hope the amateur is not who they told us they are?