January 24, 2011

Back to School for Sales

Secrets to ReMARKABILITY and UnFORGETTABILITY 
Bonding is In; Flogging is Out 
Three Elements of BE DiFFERENT Marketing 

Long term success is based on intimate relationships you have with your customers. Its not about transactions based on pushing products and services. You have heard this rant from me before.

So, how does an organization move from a Flogger to one that believes in a healthy dose of humanity to take itself to the next level of performance? It’s all very well to SAY that sales should be focused on developing deep customer relationships; it’s another thing to put the tools in place to ensure that it happens.

Sales is driven by their Compensation Plan, so we need to re-vector the plan to measure Relationship-Building Behaviors.

What does the measurement tool look like? I have had amazing success introducing what I call The Customer Report Card (CRC) as the vehicle to determine the extent to which Sales exhibited the behavior necessary to bond the customer to the company.

The CRC consists of not more than six relationship-building behaviors that you consider critical. The rating scale for each behavior is ‘A’ - Excellent (exceeds expectations); ‘B’ - Good (meets expectations) and ‘D’ - Poor, Unacceptable (falls below expectations). You can also include a Comments Section to get added information from the customer to explain their rating.

The Customer does the rating of the salesperson every month. Active engagement of the customer quite often sends the sales individual into therapy when they are suddenly confronted with the truth about their ability to get intimate with their Fans.

To get you started, here are twelve potential Relationship-Building Behaviors to consider in developing your CRC:
- listens actively to what I say; asks questions to clarify her understanding of what I have said;
- is genuinely interested in my problems and issues I am dealing with;
- always returns my calls or e-mails promptly;
- takes the time to get to know me personally;
- never breaks a promise made to me;
- talks to me in common language rather than using internal jargon;
- actively participates in helping to solve the problems in my organization;
- pro-actively send me unsolicited information on solutions that I should consider to my problems;
- says “I’m sorry” when he screws up;
- acts like my partner in business;
- takes ownership of me inside her organization. There is no question that she is my Champion inside her company;
- is a Service Recovery Addict. When his organization has made a Service blunder with me, he takes total responsibility for the matter and will stop at nothing to get the matter resolved FAST and to my satisfaction.

One other benefit of the CRC: the act of having your customer engaged will bring them closer to you. They will love you for asking them to be involved and they will tell others how HUMANE you are.

Give it a shot. You have everything to gain.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 1.24.11 at 05:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (4)

January 23, 2011

Investment Advisors Speak Out About The ONLY

Leadership remarks are telling. Mike Nott launched the morning with this remark…. “I think this is a real launching pad to lift off from…and as mentioned, the “Status Quo” is no longer acceptable, Best of Class is the new “minimum” and Being Different…IS possible!”
WOW! Now there is a leader who understands the need to BE DiFFERENT. Love it.

As you know, I am ‘over the top’ when it comes to executing on what you learn. Understanding something is nice, but is unproductive unless it degenerates into Action.

To this end, Mike asked for this feedback from everyone… What one or two things will you ‘DO’ differently going forward?

- “Approach every client meeting with my ONLY Statement at the top of my mind.”
- “Focus, focus, focus on three things each day, week, month.”
- “I will have an Only Statement. I will no longer second guess the ‘odd’ things that I do which clients appreciate.”
- “To be more open with my existing clients about the value package that I provide to them. I will be pro-active in asking them questions about how they feel about their experience with me as their advisor. I will ask them if there is anything that I could do differently to improve the level of service to them.”
- “I am going to plan more ‘on the run’. I tend to be very analytical with a strong focus on downside risk, therefore I sometimes do not execute on marketing or sales strategies that could work for me. It is time to just execute, stumble, adjust, and execute again!!”
- “Really heighten my front of mind effort to cultivate, create, support and express appreciation to SNEEZERS.”
- “Actively pursue my goals. Set goals in months, rather than years. Brainstorm ways of being unique. Cut the Crap and encourage sneezing!”
- “I will take more actions and try to create the “Ultimate Investment Experience” for the clients.”
- “I’ll LISTEN even more intently for the secrets of my top clients, to hear what they truly covet. THIS is what I’ll help them attain.”
- “I will talk to my clients more about their personal lives and I will put presentations together more quickly and not worry about being too complete....that has kept me from making any presentations in the past year.”
- “I am going to road test my ONLY Statement with both clients and prospects over the next week. “I am the only advisor who will help you make sense of your money”.
- “I do the hiring of lawyers at our firm - and while I think the people we have hired by and large are very much ‘people lovers’ rather than ‘people haters’, I think Roy made an excellent point on this and I think in the future the question as to whether a candidate is a people lover or people hater will be front and center.”
- “I see the need to try to separate myself from the herd and avoid ‘undifferentiation’.
- “Ensure all seminar material, new client processes and financial plan has my Only Statement as inspiration.”
- The most currently relevent point for me that Roy mentioned was regarding procrastination… I think more “action” is in order. I think planning in months is a great idea.”
- “Focus more on my top clients by creating barriers for them to leave - Barriers to Client Exit.”.
- “We just launched a new CRM system. I will be diligent in reviewing the system to ensure that we have captured sufficient information (secrets) on our top clients to be able to provide relevant and dazzling Value Paks.”
- “I’m going to create an experience for all of my clients/prospects that will leave a loyal lasting relationship. I will be a Financial Advisor that will look past the finances.”
- “I have already noticed a difference in the way that I am focusing on my “onlyness” with clients.”

My takeaway: BE DiFFERENT ideas and concepts resonated with these folks. And I think they will take action. That’s all I can ask. That’s all I can hope for.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 1.23.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 20, 2011

Six Effective Creativity Busters

Another Retailer Dumb Rule
Three Elements of BE DiFFERENT Marketing
What to do in 2011
Crush innovation. Stultify creativity. Reduce employees to cogs. Reduce thinking to a minimum. Prevent new ideas.

Here are Five trusted Leadership Principles to follow to get you there:

1. Say “That’s not the way we do things around here” whenever someone presents a new idea. This is an effective way of preventing people from even thinking about new ways of doing things.
2. Measure employees on how well they follow Internal Rules and Policies. If you manage performance and compensation on how well people conform to existing Rules they will be unlikely to step out of the box and try something different.
3. Punish people for making mistakes. This is an excellent tool that influences human behavior to avoid doing anything that might be painful.
4. Insist on arduous analysis of every change being contemplated regardless of complexity. This way you won’t do anything.
5. Recognize people for the ways they relentlessly practice the Internal Rules of the organization. A “Best Rule Enforcer” Award Program always gets the message across that doing what the Rules say is more important than using individual judgement.
6. Do only what the Job Description says. Never step beyond your boundaries. Never do the right thing; do only YOUR thing.

Let me know if these work for you. And stay tuned. Many organizations practice more than these Five Steps which I will present to you in future Articles.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 1.20.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 17, 2011

Secrets to ReMARKABILITY and UnFORGETTABILITY

Bonding is In; Flogging is Out
The Three Elements of Marketing
Hire for Goosebumps 
 
Competitors are entering markets at a breathless rate. Consumers are empowered more than ever before, flexing their muscles to get what they want and punishing those who fail to deliver.

So, how does an organization win in this world? How do you capture the hearts, minds and soul of the people you want to attract?

There IS a formula for this and it is really quite simple and straightforward:

Deliver VALUE that is RELEVANT (something that your fans really care about) and UNIQUE (something that ONLY you provide). Worth repeating…

Deliver VALUE that is RELEVANT (something that your fans really care about) and UNIQUE (something that ONLY you provide).

VALUE is not what you produce or supply; it’s the experience what you supply creates for your your customer. It’s not about technology and the cool things you can do with it. It’s about Feelings, Happiness and Joy people experience when you make use of whatever
you produce.

RELEVANCY describes the extent to which the Value created fits with the person’s worldview (the complex set of bias, interests and beliefs we all have when making a buy decision).

UNIQUENESS. If you are the ONLY ones who do what you do you will be noticed and paid attention to. AND you will build a fan base that will fuel growth and prosperity.

The fact of the matter is:

If you’re not ReMARKABLE, you’re CoMMON, IgNORED and InVISIBLE;

If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re DiSPENSABLE;     

If you’re not DiFFERENT, you’re DEAD (or soon will be).

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 1.17.11 at 06:27 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)