The A to Z challenge and writing about woman entrepreneurs. You may read the previous posts here.
B is for Business Plan
X is for Xenial
Being Xenial is just a fancy way of saying being hospitable. The word comes from the ancient Greek practice of being hospitable to foreigners by showing them friendliness, kindness and compassion. The old times actually involved gifting physical items to these strangers, so that they felt welcomed to the land. All qualities that any successful woman entrepreneur knows will help develop customer relations with existing and potential customers.
While I may not have heard of it before I began research into an appropriate word starting from X for this series, I do appreciate the sentiment that the word carries. It is necessary to stay professional in your interactions with the strangers who come in contact with you via your business. Your very reputation will depend on it. At the same time, you need to be open and welcoming to them. Make them feel the need for your offering and help them to purchase it.
It can be quite the balancing act as you try to show them empathy for what they are going through, build their trust in you as a person and the solution that you offer, be sensitive to their triggers, use your awareness to help them get the best deal that you offer, and continue to build a lasting relationship with them, which stays in the realm of professionalism.
The good news is, that's much easier to do as you go along. Yes, you will make a few errors of judgement along the way, but you will learn from each one of them. Don't waste copious amounts of time rerunning the errors in your head and belittling yourself for them. Soon you will become an expert on how far you can go, how much you can share and just how much vulnerability you can show them. In fact, being Xenial will become second nature to you.
The Exercise
What You Will Need: To understand your boundaries
Any good relationship, be it personal or professional, needs well defined boundaries. While being Xenial, you are creating a space for these strangers to walk into. A space where they have the freedom to peruse whatever you are selling, without any obligation to purchase it. Here you are hospitable and available, but not crowding their freedom or free will.
It's a good idea to ask yourself a few questions about the products and services that you would like to offer to your potential customers. For instance, you may create awareness about the uses of a particular product that you sell, however you may not offer free samples to them. If they want to try it out, they need to purchase it fair and square.
Another boundary could be related to the after sales process. It may be necessary to provide some after sales support to people depending on what you are selling. However, there may be tendency for them to exploit this option by demanding more than you are comfortable giving. Here it would help if you had a clearly defined policy on what you are able to help them with and what they need to figure out on their own.
Don't get suckered into providing more than you are being paid to do. You need to honour your power and respect yourself, so that the clients understand exactly where you stand. At the same time help them congenially with whatever is within the scope of the goods and services that you offer. You can be a sounding board, but you are not there to make major life decisions on their behalf. As you begin to define your boundaries, it will help you greatly in being Xenial.
No comments:
Post a Comment