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Why I’d Rather be Paying Retail Prices

The Community

We all know someone with a handy-man business, someone who sells real estate, and someone that has a landscaping service. We “got a guy for that” in most cases. There is no doubt that we can help others through our businesses as well. Nobody wants to be caught paying retail prices so we use our connections.

This is how business has been done for thousands of years, we know someone (or we ask around) and we go to them for their services. In the days before advertising as we know it, your reputation was your only way of marketing yourself. If you did a good job, people recommended you. If you sucked, they didn’t. Plain and simple, you had to be good at your job to get customers.

Taking Care of Them

We want people to know that we appreciate them when they choose our business, it puts food on our plates at night. When we know someone that does business with us we want to make them feel special, so we ‘hook them up’ when they come to us.

We may put them at the front of the line to be serviced, we throw something in for free, or we give them a discount. We may even go above and beyond the call of duty because we want them to think highly of us, especially if they are an influencer in the community. These are ways of advertising to me, turning a good customers into a walking microphone for our business. But can’t that be done with anyone?

The Fall

There’s nothing wrong with taking care of people we know that are long-term, committed supporters of ours. However, when we begin to sacrifice service to them because they got a better deal than the regular person, we are treading in dangerous waters. When we have acquaintances come to us, we know that they are more patient than the average John Doe.

Imagine if someone comes to me to get their engine repaired and I made them wait for 2 days because I am going to cut the price for them. Then since we’re rushing on it after my customer calls to ask when it will be done, the job is done poorly and they have to come back a second time for us to fix it. I may not charge them the second time and we’re still as courteous as ever. But deep down, I just ticked that person off and I may not get another chance to earn their business.

Did I really ‘hook them up’ or did I just take them for granted and cause them to lose faith in me? At that point, most people would have rather paid retail price or something close to avoid all the hassles that I just caused them. Nobody wants to take back-to-back trips to the mechanic, or call to ask when their work will be done, or call to ask why the job was done poorly.

Avoiding It

Avoiding this is simple. When it comes to service, do not treat any of your customers differently. Everyone gets the same service (which should be great, duh), and if anything the ones you know get treated better. It’s easy to change a price, that’s simple enough. But nobody is put at the back of the line because we know they are more patient than everyone else.

If it is a situation where another co-worker can take care of them, have them do so. Make sure they know all the provisions like discounts or free warranties, but don’t make them last on the delivery schedule because you know they’ll be up that night. It’s easy for us to crack under pressure and to bend the rules because we know someone outside of business transaction, so remove yourself and don’t fall into that trap.

When we take advantage of our personal relationships, it can be detrimental to our business relationships. And when we harm our business relationships, we lose them because people would rather avoid a fight and take their business elsewhere than harm a personal relationship.

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I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

I would love to hear what YOU have to say about customer service and doing business with people you know. Leave a comment below or chat with me on Twitter!

Have a great day!

Why talk if nobody cares? (no shouting, please) (3/4)

The entire purpose of social media is to connect with others, plain and simple. Connection (outside of social media) happens when we talk with others and share experiences. Connection is a meaningful thing, it’s the 2nd and 3rd most important in Maslow’s Hierarchy after our basic survival needs. Translated, this means connection isn’t just being someone’s friend on Facebook or following someone in Tumblr. Social media connections are made when we talk with people (not at them), when we feel a sense of community, and when others care about what we have to offer. Connection doesn’t happen just because we live in the same city or occasionally go to the same party.

We now have to figure out how to connect with people on these social media platforms. In Part 1 of Social Strategery we talked about being everywhere so we could be found at any party if someone were to look for us. Then in Part 2 we talked about picking one or two platforms that will have the largest demographic of our customer base and preparing to focus our efforts on those platforms. In Part 3 we’ll discuss how to make those connections on our hand-picked platforms. In Part 4 (tomorrow) we will talk about how to distribute information to the other accounts that we have setup we are not focusing on.

Communication

Communication is a two way street: talking AND listening. The most effective social media campaigns listen more than they talk. A common mistake that many businesses make is to just post on Facebook when they want something. We post when we have a new product, or we post when reduce a price, or we post when we want to same something from people. We need to post when we have something that will bring value to our customers, not just when we want something from them.

Here are some of the worst practices on social media that many businesses have in common:

they do more talking then listening, and some don’t listen at all
they only post things that are beneficial to them
they don’t have authentic personality in their posts
they aren’t clear with their messages

Here’s now we can avoid those mistakes and build effective social media campaigns by listening, engaging, and then asking.

Listen

Think about the guy that always talks and you can never get a word in. How did he get invited to this party? Does anyone like him? Does anyone ask his opinion? We don’t have to because he usually offers it without being prompted. This is how we are perceived when all we do is post on social media without engaging. It’s a self-serving approach that would be scoffed at if we changed the setting to a party. I call this ‘shouting.’ Telling people to “Look at me, I’m the greatest!” without bringing value the people we’re trying to convert to customers.

If we watch our timelines we will find out what people want and we can offer something to them if we’re attentive. We can see what is popular online and craft our messages to resonate with the people that follow us. When we cater our messages to our audience we are much more likely to get them engaged with us. I use the below tools to monitor what is going on in the world. Set these up and have them sent to your inbox once a day/week so you can find out what is going on outside of your immediate circles.

Another way to listen is to ask for feedback on our social media accounts. Ask followers what product improvements they could use, ask them what new services they would like us to offer, ask what they don’t like about our business, ask what they had for lunch today. Just ask! And when people give us honest feedback, we need to respond honestly to them. Even if we’re not face to face, people’s noses still work. BS is easy to smell.

Engage

One way Epic Day Outdoors has engaged with users on Instagram is by finding pictures that are relevant to our niche and commenting on them. If we find a great fishing photo we tell them congrats, if we find a great surfing video we compliment them on their wave and ask where the video was taken, and if we see funny hashtag on a rock climbing picture we make a relevant joke and ask tell them it looks like a fun day.

We like as many photos as possible and we do our best to comment on the ones that aren’t quite “like-worthy” so that our outreach is even larger.We follow the people we engage with and do our best to flatter them when we initially follow them. We are giving as much as much as possible so when it’s time to ask, people are more open to give back. If all we did was post photos and follow people, we wouldn’t have a very engaged user base and our social campaign wouldn’t be very effective.

Beneficial

So we know what NOT to do; don’t shout at people, it’s rude. When engaging, remember the party analogy, we want to provide value to the people we’re talking to. Value can be funny posts, value can be telling someone they have a nice cover photo, value can even be sending people to your site using content marketing (free info) that could be useful to them. Value is not what we sell.

People need to know who we are and know that we provide value of some sort or they will tune out our noise. We can also provide value by offering helpful tips, free user guides, or even interesting articles that pertain to our business. The most effective social media campaigns will provide beneficial, authentic information that is relevant to what is happening right now in the world by keeping an eye on trends with the tools above. This does not have to come from us, it can come from other sources as long as it’s relevant and trusted. When we post things that we didn’t create, our credibility is on the line.

If a tree falls in the woods…

Authentic

When we mix the personality of our business with our valuable posts we are moving in the right direction. We want to convey messages that reflect who we are and what people can expect when they get us on the phone, when they come to our website, or when they visit us in our store. People should not be able to tell the difference from social media messages to in-store conversations.

It’s important for a brand to have an authentic voice or else we can become lost in the noisy world of social media. Think, what makes us unique? Why should people be our customers instead of our competitors? When we answer those questions, infuse our social media messages with those answers to get our authentic voice.

Asking

To avoid ‘shouting’ we need to be transparent about when it’s time to ask for the sale. This means we don’t try and trick people into clicking a link or signing up, we tell them up front what they’re getting. On sales calls, we don’t just walk up to someone and ask if they want to buy. We take time to build rapport, we make connections, we ask questions about their business/life, and then when the time is right we go for the close.

We have to engage before we close or the sales process will never work. If we change the setting, we see how redundant our efforts can be on social media. So now that we’ve provided value more than we’ve asked for business, we can be clear about what we’re asking for. The best sales people are not sneaky, they are not liars, and they are good communicators. Now we have a voice, we have attention of our users, and have the opportunity to ask for the sale. We have set ourselves up for success, just ask the question, “Will you buy my product?”

Thus far in Social Strategery we have covered how to be everywhere on social media, how to pick the right platform for our business, and now we know how to communicate effectively on our hand-picked platforms of choice. In Part 4 we’ll explore how to maintain a presence on other platforms that we do not use as often as our hand-picked accounts.

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How do you engage with your followers?

Connect with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear your successes (& failures) on the subject.

P.S. 14 Days till Christmas!

Memorable is Bad

We have interactions every day with various businesses from coffee shops to hardware stores to beauty salons and everything in between. Many of these experiences are exactly what we expected, and some of the special ones are even memorable for a period. But what we don’t encounter every day are unforgettable experiences. Experiences that make us tell friends and family what it was like and why they should go experience it too, even years after their story happened.

Publix grocers are great. They have all the food we need, it’s fresh, and the staff is extremely friendly. And it’s always like that, it’s what we’ve come to expect. There’s usually a slight grin on people’s face as they walk out of the automatic doors pushing their buggies full of groceries and household supplies. But we rarely go out and continue to talk about how great Publix is to our friends and family. We rarely attempt to convince someone to switch from Harris Teeter or Bi-Lo to Publix because Publix is so far superior. Instead we go there each week and we get our groceries and we smile and have small talk with the employees and we go home. We have memorable experiences that fade out after time.

There is nothing wrong with this, Publix is a great company and has a great model. They have one very loyal customer in me, but they don’t stand out head and shoulders above the rest. Many people go to Harris Teeter or Bi-Lo and experience the same thing, it often comes down to preference and geography.

Then there are companies that create unforgettable experiences. These are the places that we walk out of with an open mouth because we’re in awe. These are the places that prompt us to call friends and ask, “Have you been here before? Why didn’t you tell me about them earlier?” These are the unforgettable experiences that people talk about, not just smile about.

When I did sales training I would preach about a ‘wow experience’ for customers from start to finish. Since it was not a traditional furniture store the possibilities were endless, people did not know what to expect so the bar is relatively low for newcomers. The sales people had great influence on how to create that experience and the best ones took advantage of it; combining personal charm with a bit of smart-aleck customer service, and great values in the furniture. This paired with the methods people would find the stores like Craigslist, word of mouth, and even seeing paint markers on someone’s back windshield made for an unforgettable story that customers could tell their friends. Plus when people find a great bargain, they are ready and eager to boast to their neighbors about how much money they saved. This made for the perfect storm of referrals for the company.

So how is that replicated in large stores that have been around for years? Or in places like Publix whose customer base might frequent the store multiple times per week. How can they continue to create those ‘wow experiences’ for customers?

Continue to push the limits. Continue to experiment. Continue to make our organizations stand out. The risks are worth the reward to create something that is unforgettable.

What if Publix gave out “Customer of the Month” to the person they see the most or the one that spends the most? Will that be a customer for life? Will that make some people want to win that and frequent the store more often? What if the furniture store sales people all wore bright green polo shirts to work EVERY day with no exception? What if they then added bright green hand-written thank you notes in the mail to their customers after every sale to reinforce their experience? They would begin to stick out even more to customers and encourage them to keep talking. These types of things reinforce the experience and can turn a memorable experience into an unforgettable one.

What can we add to our businesses that will make us unforgettable?

Sunk Cost – Knowing when to walk away

We’ve all heard the expression, “Know when to cut your losses,” but that’s much easier said than recognized.

Sunk costs are the monies invested on projects, ideas, people, or plans that never pan out. A half written blog post is an example of a sunk cost. We start and can’t finish the idea through so it’s left as a ‘draft’ never to be touched again, we cannot recoup that time spent on it. A baseball player that has been training with the team as the starter with the team all off-season that gets hurt in the opening game; an entire off-season wasted that could have been spent working with someone else. A sales call that requires travel and time studying the company being sold to that never gets closed. All of these are examples of sunk costs. The money and time spent on these projects cannot be recouped, however these acts do not need to be in vain.

We can always learn from half-written blog posts. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea to begin with. Or maybe it’s just a smaller part of a bigger idea, like a book or a longer post. Or maybe still it’s just a product of the creative process of taking an idea from a thought rattling around in our minds to well-thought out words on paper. The starting player can always teach the backup what he’s learned so he can pick up where the original left off. And for the original, he’s got great experience for the next season and is further along than he after the team invested that entire off-season in him. And that sales call that required so much effort more than likely produced some answers as to what that company did want. Now it’s time for the sales person to go back to the drawing board.

The key to each of these situations is knowing when to walk away. We have all seen the new sales person that never quite ‘gets it’ even after weeks of training and practice. Even though the company has spent time and money on him, he needs to be let go or the company is going to lose even more money. The company needs to determine what is more of a loss: the time and money spent training that him or the time and money that will be spent cleaning up trying to compensate for his lack of performance or even worse, cleaning up the relationships he ruins.

We find ourselves viewing the past investment as more important than the future investments for the decisions we’re making today. And when those past costs become more important than the future costs, we continue to invest today instead of severing ties and walking away. If we account for the future costs we will be making smarter decisions for the long-term instead of being hard-headed and continuing to invest in the lost cause.

Find the right time to cut our losses this week.

Leave it all on the field

Most sales people have quotas and goals that must be met.

A quota for X amount of sales and a goal of X + Y amount of sales. The quotas are often requirement, meaning if that particular sales person doesn’t make their mark for a succession of two or three periods their job is in jeopardy.

However, at the opposite end of those quotas are goals.

In most cases goals are set for each period and have an exact cutoff date: end of the month, quarter, year, etc. This practice is good on paper, but sales people see what they have to do to not get fired (quota) and what they need to do to make more money (goal) and they just reach above that mark without striving further.

Case Study

I had a friend that sold copiers for a large company and they structured her quotas and goals on a monthly basis. She was excellent at this job so when she had a goal set at the beginning of the month, she’d go out immediately and achieve her goal within 10 days of receiving her objective.

Good for her!

She got the rest of the month to do whatever she wanted to. But what if that company would have incentivised her to work the entire 30 days of the month?

I’m not criticizing her, I’m pointing out that the company has flawed bonus structures. THEY ARE ONLY GETTING 33% PRODUCTION OUT OF THIS PERSON THAT WAS EXCELLENT AT SELLING COPIERS.

In any other industry, if a person or machine is only doing their job at 33% efficiency they are going to be replaced, quickly.

What if they could have structured her commission to continue rising each month with no cap or final goal? What if they would have structured her bonus plan to have tiers that were easily attainable and unlimited so she could continue to push herself even after small achievements had been made? What if they wouldn’t have given her any quotas or bonuses and asked to her to sell as many as she could?

Guarantee that last one would yield the highest results of all.

Too often we settle for the low-hanging fruit.

During my time playing football we went through a season that pinned our backs against the wall and we had to play every game as if it were our last.

We could “leave it all on the field” because if we didn’t win the game today, the game next week wouldn’t matter in the chase for a championship. When we realized this and we put ourselves in that “no tomorrow” mentality, we knew we couldn’t save some sales for next period, we had to get them all in this period or there wouldn’t be a next.

We needed 100% efficiency in each game, and we needed to get better at the same time. We won 5 games in a row and won a conference championship when we finally decided that “there is no tomorrow.”

Learn to finish each month, period, game, contest as if it’s our last and great things will happen.

If we’re in the position of structuring incentives for our company, don’t look to have a good plan “on paper.” Instead look to build a good plan that our sales people will respect and chase after at all levels, not just enough to keep their jobs.

Leave it all on the field today!

Play to Win

When faced with choices, there are the safe ones and there are the best ones and they are rarely the same thing. In sports we have a popular saying: “You play to win. You don’t play NOT to lose.”

When we play “not to lose” we are making timid choices. We coach scared, we play scared, we don’t take risks with our business, we simply protect what’s ours. This usually happens when a team is up and ‘defending’ a lead. In business this happens when we have developed a successful product or service and we shift our mindset in order to NOT lose customers. We get comfortable and we do what we have to (which is usually the bare minimum) to keep the lead or customers we have instead of going out on a limb for more.

We operate with the mindset that there is more apparent risk in ambition than there is in maintaining our current situation. The sad part is that when we start playing “not to lose” we change the mindset that got us that upper hand to begin with. Don’t play NOT to lose this week, play to win.

Extreme View

We have all met extreme people in our time. Each individual brings their own extreme to the table in a different area, and for good reason. When someone is extreme in their convictions they are typically far away from our stance on the same subject, but they have a true passion for what they believe in. This can refer to religion, strategic plans, sales tactics, or simply a passion about what food they put in their body. And they need an extreme view because most of us will not waver from our positions without a strong incentive to do so. We are creatures of habit and we tend to be stagnant, not buying into new ideas quickly.

I know a man that is the sales person for a finance company and is excellent at his job. He travels the country selling his finance program to stores everywhere and teaching their sales people how to use the product. He has a total belief and a passion for his product which is one reason he is excellent at his job. The other reason is that when he presents to an individual or an entire organization he is ‘extreme’ in his pitch. In his sales pitch he tells people that they need to change their entire sales process in order to incorporate his program. But the magic of this is that when he teaches, he leaves subtle hints on how to incorporate his program in bits and pieces that will be very effective without fully implementing his process. He is pitching his program in its entirety while leaving breadcrumbs on how it can be incorporated without changing an entire sales process. He has to be extreme in his approach in order for the people he’s pitching to meet him 1/2 way and begin to implement his program. If he’s lackluster and only sounds half as convincing, the people he’s pitching are only going to meet him 1/4 of the way to where he wants them.

Many business authorities that have talked about the dangers of allowing organizations to ‘split the difference’ and it’s negative impacts. I agree that it can be detrimental in cases, especially when it is within an organization that is rolling out new ideas or internal program. However, in this instance, splitting the difference in going from NOT using a finance program to trying out a finance program because the sales person was so convincing has helped bring the company over $1,000,000 in financed customers since that extreme presentation. The sales person has to be extreme on one side to get his potential clients to meet him half way and begin to use his program. And the next step in his brilliant process is to incrementally bring them closer to his ‘extreme’ stance as his customers use his finance program more and more. The more they see it’s success at 1/2 way implementation, the closer he can bring them to be 100% implementing his process.

Are people meeting us 1/2 way or even 1/4 of the way to something we believe in? Maybe the answer is to have a more extreme view to get them closer to what we believe. Pick a Direction and be extreme!

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