“People don’t do what you expect but what you inspect.” -Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
If you have a marketing or sales background, I hope you were disappointed when I revealed to you the standard response given by most pro-life pregnancy centers when asked by an abortion-seeking woman, “Do you provide abortions?” henceforth referred to as “the question.”
The standard response to “the question” – “We neither provide, nor refer for, abortions.” – is not centered on the needs of the abortion-seeking woman, and therefore, is not a proper sales response.
To the contrary, the standard response is focused on the pregnancy center – its “product” offering, its leaders, its staff, its benefactors.
All things that the woman on the other end of the line doesn’t care about, at all.
I imagine if the center’s benefactors who have marketing and sales backgrounds found out about the center’s standard response to “the question,” they would be none too happy.
Starting with an Other-Centered Question
Why?
Again, it’s simply that the standard response to “the question” doesn’t demonstrate any concern about the abortion-seeking woman’s needs.
I am not claiming that the team at pregnancy center doesn’t care about the woman’s needs.
They most certainly do care.
I am claiming that the abortion-seeking woman’s perception after hearing the center’s standard response to “the question,” will be that the center isn’t focused on her.
And therefore, her response will be to move on to an organization that, from her perception, does focus on her.
What would a benefactor with a sales and marketing background do if they were asked by the center, out of the blue, to step in and help answer calls from abortion-seeking women?
First and foremost, even without any specific training for the task, when fielding a call from an abortion-seeking woman, the sales and marketing benefactor’s natural inclination would be to start the conversation, and keep the conversation, focused on the woman.
For example, a very simple way to keep the conversation focused on the other person is to ask them questions.
In place of the standard response that focuses on the center, a sales and marketing professional might start with a simple question to a woman who asks “the question” by responding, “How do you know you’re pregnant?”
Such an approach is eminently better than the standard response because it is focused on the woman.
Demand Better to Get Better
I think it’s fair to say that among a typical pro-life pregnancy center’s group of benefactors, there are very likely some who have professional backgrounds in sales and marketing.
Are they aware that the center they support gives the standard response to “the question?”
In my experience, not at all.
Why not?
Because they don’t ask the center’s leadership about their marketing and sales processes.
And because they don’t ask, they don’t know.
And because they don’t know, they can’t evaluate what the center is doing that is good marketing and sales, or bad, and based on those evaluations recommend, or demand, changes that would improve the center’s performance.
It’s a curious phenomenon that professional marketing and sales people, who would be very unlikely to invest in a for-profit business without understanding, and agreeing with, its marketing and sales strategy, will freely give their hard-earned money to pro-life pregnancy centers without asking any questions at all about the center’s marketing and sales processes.
Tomorrow, I’ll offer my two cents on why I think that is.
Regards,
Brett