Every deal is an exchange of values
June 11, 2007
 Dorothy Scullion in 1980. |
Years ago, when I was a young hospital vice president, one of the people reporting to me was the volunteer director, Dorothy Scullion. Scully had been on the job 37 years and was frustrating. Brimming with youth and enthusiasm, I had many suggestions to improve the program. But no matter what I suggested, Scully would say: “We tried that in 1957. It doesn’t work.”
Nothing I could do about it. She had the job for life, so I just focused on my other areas of responsibility and hoped that one day she would retire.
Then Scully did something I couldn’t believe. She fired a volunteer! Not just any volunteer, but the one who won the award each year for most hours of service.
Granted, he was a cranky old man who had nothing better to do, but he served an important role, staffing the Surgical Waiting Area each day, making families comfortable while loved ones were in surgery. This is where the doctors could find the families after the operation. His job was to keep the coffee pot going and the magazines stacked neatly and the area reasonably tidy. Although we received an occasional complaint about his attitude, he did a reasonably good job.
He appealed for me to reinstate him, and I summoned Scully to my office to explain.
“He didn’t show up for work today, and he didn’t call to warn me,” she said. “The volunteers have to feel that they do important work. They need to hear the message that we are counting on them. By not coming in and not calling, he let us down, and everyone needs to know we won’t tolerate that.”
I brokered a peace treaty. He apologized and swore he would never do that again. Scully took him back, having made the point to all of the other volunteers that each of them serves an important role in the organization.
This was the first time I realized that Scully actually knew what she was doing, and perhaps could teach me a thing or two. So we began talking.
One of her lessons was that every volunteer was there for a selfish reason – that even in the apparent selflessness of working for no pay, each was receiving something of equal or greater value in return.
Recognizing that is the secret to running a successful volunteer program, she said. Unlike an employer-employee relationship, where the exchange of values is “I work, you pay,” it’s more subtle for volunteers, and each one has a different motive.
In the hospital setting, the motive could be as simple as feeling useful after retiring. Or looking for new friends, or a new mate. Or to be in the right place at the right time when a job opens. Or to develop new job skills – like learning to use a computer – in preparation for a return to the job market. Or hearing the gossip on the elevators and knowing what the nurses REALLY think about the doctors. Or being a familiar face, not just a number, when being admitted as a patient.
One of Scully’s most popular volunteer programs was for retired couples. The wives would volunteer on Monday and Wednesday, and the husbands on Tuesday and Thursday, giving each some quality time away from each other.
Another was to trade hours in the most popular jobs for hours in the boring jobs. For example, everyone wants to work the information desk because you get to know who is in the hospital, and why. (You can’t talk about it, because you are sworn to secrecy, but you can display a knowing smirk when someone asks “How’s Harriet doing?”) You want four hours on the information desk? It costs you four hours of filing in the back room.
“Every volunteer is getting something that to them is of equal or greater value than the service they are providing,” Scully said.
So why am I wasting your time with ancient history about volunteers? Because the principle is very much the same in business. Just as Scully needed to figure out what each volunteer was getting in return for his or her service, people in business need to understand what the potential customer hopes to get in exchange for their money.
There is always an exchange of values in every deal. The deal does not happen unless each side thinks they are getting something of equal or greater value. So many sales are lost because people forget this basic principle.
When you are making a sales pitch, are you focusing on the quality of your product or service? Or are you trying to judge what the customer is looking to achieve, and slanting your pitch to emphasize the benefits to him?
The customer is not looking to buy a product or service, but rather to solve a problem. Ask questions. Try to figure out what problem the customer is trying to solve, and then shape your sales pitch to match that need.
Scully would be proud of me.
