BIZBUZZ: Cy Charney: The Salesperson’s Handbook

Hi, I’m Gary Brown, a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to episode 16 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations in order to help business owners imagine a future state of affairs that is different from their present state.

The following video highlights some content from The Salesperson’s Handbook, written by Cy Charney.  The focus is recognizing what constitutes excellent customer service.

I am going to comment on the basic customer needs that are identified by Charney.

He suggests that customers have a handful of basic needs. Customers want to feel safe; they want to be treated as special; they have a need to feel successful; they want things done right the first time and customers want to get things done efficiently.

This raises a question in my mind. If basic needs are being met, how focused on price do we need to be?

Charney also introduces an appropriate quotation from Aristotle. He stated that “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit”. I wonder how many of us realize that habits are acquired through practice?  Sometimes, I can’t help but think that some more practice is needed!

Well, that’s it for The Saleperson’s Handbook.
Thanks for watching.

Your comments are always welcome.
Stay tuned for more BIZ BUZZ.

BIZBUZZ: H. Thompson: Who Stole My Customer

This is episode 10 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations in order to challenge business owners to Be Different and to Act Boldly.  The following video highlights several observations from Harvey Thompson’s book Who Stole My Customer that I found interesting.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZBUZZ.

I’ve chosen to comment on Who Stole My Customer, a book written by Harvey Thompson that deals with the subject of customer touchpoints.

I’d like to highlight three observations from the book that I feel are noteworthy.

Thompson first posits that at every touchpoint intersection, the customer’s processes are interacting with the company’s processes.  His customer touchpoints are:

– they gather information & shop

– they make a purchase

– they receive the purchased item

– they pay for the purchase

– they use the product/service

– they experience post purchase customer service

– they buy again or discontinue the relationship

So, have your internal processes for these touchpoints been designed with your customers in mind?

A logical extension of this first point is that customer touchpoints represent both an opportunity and a risk.  As obvious as this statement is, how well are we seizing the opportunity to make our customers happy, in order to minimize our risk?  [for more on differentiation, read To Be Different or Not (at Your Peril)]

My final observation is Thompson’s definition as to why customers defect.  He claims that first among the major reasons is lack of courtesy.  This is followed by competence.  Does everyone in your organization know what courtesy looks like?

Well, that’s it for Who Stole My Customer.

Thanks for watching.

Your comments are always welcome.

Stay tuned for more BIZBUZZ.

BIZBUZZ: R. Whiteley, The Customer Driven Company

This is episode 7 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations that challenge business owners to consider new possibilities and to Act Boldly.  The following video highlights some of the content from Richard Whiteley’s book The Customer Driven Company that made sense to me.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZ BUZZ.

I’ve chosen to comment on The Customer Driven Company, by Richard Whiteley.  Not surprisingly, this book deals with the relationship that we have with our customers.

I’d like to highlight four observations from the book that interest me.

The first deals with vision.  I know that this is a repeat from my most recent BIZBUZZ episode, but I believe it bears repeating.  Whiteley defines vision as a source of inspiration and a guide to decision making.  How often do we use our vision statement as a litmus test for decision making?

My next observation expands on vision statements.  Whiteley encourages the reader to communicate the vision constantly.  He stresses the need to establish challenging goals that are driven by the vision and to embody it in our everyday behaviour.  How many of us act on this advice?

Comment number three is specific to our customers.  The suggestion is that we should make it easy for our customers to complain to us about our products and services.  That might sound trite but do we even have a method for customer complaints?

Finally, I’d just like to mention that Whiteley identifies what he calls the seven essentials that are the game plan of winners.  Here they are:

1. Create a customer keeping vision

2. Saturate your company with the voice of the customer

3. Go to school on the winners

4. Liberate your customer champions

5. Smash the barriers to customer-winning performance

6. Measure, measure, measure

7. Walk the talk

That’s it for The Customer Driven Company.

Your comments are always welcome.

Stay tuned for more BIZ BUZZ.

BIZBUZZ: D. Sanders – Built To Serve

This is episode 6 of BIZBUZZ.

I stimulate conversations that challenge business owners to consider new possibilities and to Act Boldly.  The following video highlights some of the comments from Dan Sanders’ book Built To Serve that resonated with me.

Hi, I’m Gary Brown a FocalPoint business coach.

Welcome to BIZBUZZ.

I’ve chosen to comment on Built To Serve, a book written by Dan Sanders that deals essentially with the subject of leadership.

I’d like to highlight three observations from the book that interest me.

The first deals with vision.  Sanders contends that vision is about an organization’s purpose.  It’s the heart of an entity.  It has more to do with significance than success.  I couldn’t agree more.  Too often vision statements get used to paper over cracks in the lobby wall.

My next observation deals with mission statements.  I’ve found that people sometimes treat vision and mission as synonyms, when in fact Sanders identifies mission as ‘what you do to achieve the vision’.  How does your organization view these two statements?

My final comment deals with Sander’s contention that leaders interested in long term success should regularly ask themselves these three questions:

1. what have we done for our customers?
2. What have we done for our employees?
3. What have we done for our community?

If we are built to serve, these three questions seem very logical.  They might be logical but do we do anything with them?  Do we see them as central to our role as leaders?

That’s it for Built To Serve.

Stay tuned for more BIZBUZZ

Your comments are always welcome.

Only For The Bold

For those businesses that use the calendar year as their fiscal year, it is time to wrap your minds around your budget for the upcoming year.

Here is a challenge for you to chew on.  What would it take to double your revenue in 2014?

Now, if you say it can’t be done, then you’re right.  But, if you ask yourself “what would we have to do in order to double our business?”, then you are at least open to the possibility.

If you are going to double your revenue in 2014, determine your average annual revenue per customer.  You can attempt to double the number of customers you currently serve or double the annual revenue per customer or some combination thereof.  Some questions to ask yourself are:

a) how do I get more and better leads?

b) how do I improve our lead to customer conversion rate?

c) can we increase the number of transactions per customer?

d) can we increase the amount spent per customer transaction?

Here is a perspective that you can use in your planning activity:

1) Do more of some things

2) Do less of some things

3) Do some new things

4) Stop doing some things altogether

Let’s get started by looking at the top 20% of your client base.  Chances are that these customers account for 80% of your revenue.  Are there additional services or products that you currently offer that these customers would purchase from you?  If they are also focused upon growth, will the frequency of their purchases be increased?  Will they pay more for the existing products and services that they purchase from you?

Are there some customers that should receive fewer services from you?  Are there services that you provide for which you are not adequately reimbursed?

Who are the targeted companies that you should be approaching?  What new products or services can you add to your offering that are complementary to your current offering?  Is your current business plan in need of being revised?

Let’s go back to that 80/20 analysis of your customer base.  Which companies are candidates for pruning from your customer base?  Do you have any products or services that should likewise be expunged?

I’d encourage you to spend some time asking yourself how the business could be doubled rather than simply accepting that you can’t do it.  There will be smiles all around even if you only lift the business by 50%!

Impending Success

I can’t help but think that fall represents a kind of dash to the finish line for many businesses.  We are starting to think about 2014 but we still have fifteen weeks to hit or miss the targets that we built for ourselves twelve months ago.  Are we up to the challenges that still lie ahead?

I’m off to an upcoming Brian Tracy Sales Certification workshop and I can’t help but wonder how many companies are in need of some sales help.  John Kenneth Galbraith once said that you “can’t expect improved results with unimproved people”.  Furthermore, a Dun and Bradstreet analysis of business success found that “businesses succeed because of high sales; businesses fail because of low sales.  All else is commentary”.  It can’t get much more succinct than that.

When we talk about our sales effort, we  frequently focus on those people that are charged with the responsibility of bringing new sales in through the front door.  Interestingly, anyone involved in a customer touchpoint can impact our sales performance.  The reference to touchpoint means any of a number of occasions when we interact with the customer.  It is possible that some of those interactions are not viewed by us as sales opportunities.  Examples that come to mind include such transactions as invoicing, product delivery and the provision of after sales service.  However, all touchpoints influence our customers and impact their decision to continue their relationship with us in the future or not.  Hence, at a minimum, they are opportunities to influence future sales.  But, do we invest in the training of all employees who can impact our sales performance?  Or do we perhaps tend to think that the selling stops when the purchase order is processed?

The major reason that existing customers decide to leave us is driven by a lack of courtesy displayed towards them.  Really!  In a world where it is tough enough to find customers, you would think we would do everything we can to hold on to the existing ones.  That would suggest that a modicum of sales training should be in your program.

On the new customer front, do we realize that selling is a process that can be taught?  Selling doesn’t need to be the hurdle that we often make it out to be.  There is no magic to the selling process and it isn’t that some are born to it and the vast majority of us simply can’t do it.  The truth is that we are all involved in the selling process, in some form or another, all the time.  We just don’t think in those terms.  Another truth is that we can all get better at it.  Are we doing enough to ensure that happens?

In closing, here is a sobering quotation to ponder: “the company that stops getting better gets worse” or so suggests Phil Kotler, a well renowned marketing professor.