August 29, 2011

Serve and Sell

Customer Appreciation Events Don’t Make Sense
Great Leaders are Awesome Translators
Thank You #2
Serve, Serve, Serve and Sell. The fact is, selling is NOT different from serving if done right. Sales = Serving. Period.
Serve someone well by taking time to truly understand their wants and desires, by showing you care about them and you will discover an opportunity to offer them something you provide that will make their life better. Simple.
The problem with Sales today is they are seen as a distinct entity with the responsibility to move what the business supplies to the market. Most Sales organizations are supply-centric and are compensated to flog as much product as they can. Under such a mandate it’s no wonder that the needs of the customer take second priority.
A right angled change is necessary. Sales Serves. The prime role is to Serve in such a way that the opportunities for the company are uncovered through caring engagement and conversation. Effective selling happens within a Serving dynamic not outside it.
And if you do a good enough job at it the customer will be compelled to buy. Compensate your sales people on Serving and trust that sales will result. You won’t be disappointed.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 8.29.11 at 05:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 25, 2011

Customer Appreciation Events are WRONG

VALUE is…
Great Leaders are Awesome Translators
Thank You #2
Customer Appreciation Events are commonplace in business. Customer Appreciation Day, Week or for the more ambitious, Month, are intended to show customers how much they are cared for.
Why? I don’t get the logic. And in most instances it’s hypocritical.
Do we only appreciate or care for people one day (or week, or month) a year? Do we save up all our love and dump it on them at one time and expect them to thank us and believe we sincerely want to develop a deep intimate relationship with them?
I have always been offended by this marketing tactic because it implies that the business doesn’t give a damn about someone for the rest of the year. Even worse is the situation where a company with marginal service does this believing it will mend broken customer relationships. Really?
Think you’re fooling people? Think again.
So, to those who want to throw their money into an event that few customers believe in, I say this: invest in providing caring service to your customers EVERY MOMENT of EVERYDAY and you shall reap the rewards of rich Fan relationships and maniacal Advocates who will spread your word to others.
Keep ‘grinning’ your most precious asset once during the year and you won’t be around long.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 8.25.11 at 05:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (4)

July 25, 2011

Lady Gaga Misguided

Secret Gathering Process
Power Up with Customer Secrets
THREES: Cut the CRAP

Why wouldn’t she be looking for ways to make it easy for photographers to take shots at one of her concerts? Why wouldn’t she take a leaf out of The Grateful Dead’s marketing playbook and be focused on creating memorable experiences for her concert fans as opposed to trying to control the photo mob.

For a star like her, isn’t it a good idea to have as many shots of her on stage out in the world as possible? Maybe it’s a money thing. She needs the money, right?

The Grateful Dead led the way as THE most successful concert band EVER. They did it by creating ‘mind blowing’ experiences for their fans and by making it easy for them to record their music and take pictures of them. In fact an integral part of their staging was an area built especially for people to record their music and take whatever shots they wanted. Truly years ahead of their time in understanding how to create a Tribe of loyal maniacs.

I don’t get Gaga on this one. She is a formidable marketing machine who I like in many ways. But she is out of tune on this one.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 7.25.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 7, 2011

The Economics of DAZZLE

THREES - Cut the CRAP
Take CARE of People
TRUST Your Frontline
A HUGE element of the BE DiFFERENT philosophy is to Serve people. To care for them. To Delight them. To Dazzle them by delivering GaSPWORTHY experiences when you engage with them. Why? The decision of whether or not I continue to do business with you is going to be based on how I FEEL when I interact with your organization. NOT on the fact that your product or service works the way you said it would. Return business is therefore a function of these Experience Drivers: Delight. Wow. Dazzle. Caring. Trust. ‘Closed for Business’ on the other hand is guaranteed by these: Anger. Insult. Disrespect. Suspicion. Distrust.

‘The Thank You Economy’ by Gary Vaynerchuck addresses the issue of Loyalty and Advocacy in the world of Social Media. Gary’s theme is that a Caring Culture is necessary for any organization to be successful today particularly when you consider how people can use Social Media to expose those that really don’t care about their customers.

More review to come on Gary’s work but a piece that I found particularly interesting related to the ROI of persistently Dazzling people and turning them into maniacal Fans (Gary calls them Advocates).
He quotes an IBM Study of online retail consumer buying patterns:
- Advocates’ share of wallet is 33% more than that of customers who aren’t advocates.
- Advocated spend about 30% more dollars with their favorite online retainers than non-advocates do.
- Advocates stick around longer, proving themselves less likely to switch to a competitor…
- Advocates have significantly higher lifetime value… they are more likely to keep spending…
Gary also presents the case of Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos buying Zappos for $1.2 Billion as evidence of a transaction that valued the market power of a culture of caring and a business whose sole purpose is to Dazzle their customers at every opportunity. Now THERE is a great example of monetizing Dazzle!

Pretty compelling conclusions on the Return on Dazzle. If so, why do we constantly run in to organizations that treat us like sub-humans? CEO’s are smart folks so it can’t be because of Leadership Myopia could it?

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 7.7.11 at 06:00 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)