March 31, 2012

Are Your Sales People Addicts?

Sales as Secret Agents
Brand your Sales Warriors
Lose a Sale But Save the Customer

There are four ways you can vary the way customers are treated wth the out come of DAZZLING them to build loyalty.

They are:
1. Hire human being lovers
2. Bend the rules and empower frontliners to ‘say yes’ to customers
3. Kill dumb rules
4. Recover: Fix your blunder and do the unexpected

Sales are in a critical position in the organization to influence the outcome of a customer screw-up yet they are rarely held accountable for it.

Service Recovery is not a vital component of Sales’ performance plans and as a result it is not reflected in their compensation plan for bonus pay.

To BE DiFFERENT in Sales, recovery needs to be front and center in what they do. Who is in a better position to initiate action when a customer has been disappointed? When the organization has broken a promise? When the solution provided doesn’t work to specifications? When the solution was not provided when it was promised? Typically, if the salesperson has developed a trusted relationship with a customer they will get the call and will be expected to get things back in order. Yet in too many cases, the salesperson will pass this ‘service complaint’ off to others in the organization whose role is to deal with ‘after sale’ matters.

Sales needs to take the lead in the service recovery process.

They are responsible to build meaningful relationships with customers and therefore must include actions taken when things go wrong.

The Sales Behavioral Charter defines those behaviors that sales must continually demonstrate - Recovery must be part of it.

Cheers,
Roy

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Posted 3.31.12 at 05:39 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 29, 2012

Your Business Case is Worthless Unless…

I know you Know, but do you FEEL?
3 Aha’s For Success
Most Winners are Losers

Your Business Case Proposal has been approved. Yes!

All your hard work has paid off. The many hours of analysis. Research. Economic study. Trade-off Assessment. Lobbying for support.

Make no mistake about it though. All you have done is make the “Paper Case” that your plan will succeed. You have in no way created a case that will actually win in the “Real World”.

In fact most of the work that has to be done takes place AFTER your plan has been approved internally.

Execution brings your Case to life.

Roy’s Rule: Whatever the number of hours invested in developing your Business Case, spend 3 Times more in creating your detailed Execution Plan.

The critical steps that must be taken in your action plan. The individuals who will be assigned to each. The completion dates for each action item. The review process that will be followed to ensure implementation is
moving forward as planned. Contingencies for when things go off track (AND THEY WILL).

Your Business Case has given you the right to commit resources to a given course. It is a mere possibility and guarantees NOTHING in terms of success.

Put in the hard work to execute it into a success…

Cheers,
Roy
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Posted 3.29.12 at 03:03 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 26, 2012

3 Aha’s For Business Success

Everybody is looking for the key to winning in business.

Problem is there isn’t ONE key. Winning in today’s intensely competitive world is all about doing a ton of simple things that create distance from the Competitive Herd.

But there are 3 things that, if done with passion and relentless tenacity, will turbocharge any organization on a winning path.

1. Have an ONLY Statement. Create a competitive claim that clearly establishes your distinctiveness. Your uniqueness. What makes you special compared to others.
“We are the ONLY ones that…..” is THE practical way to create your position that is not aspirational and helium-filled. The ONLY is your Elevator Speech to describe what you do and who you are.

2. Do stuff for your Fans. Make THEM the center of attention. Get viral. Build your business on the backs of the people who are loyal to you. Make it easy for them to ‘sneeze’ you to others. Grow your business by trusting that if you leave your Fans GaSPWORTHY they will spread your word.

3. Make your game the DAZZLE game. Loyalty is created by delivering WOW experiences not products that work according to specifications. People expect things to work the way you say they will. What they DON’T expect is a mind-blowing experience when they get them. Dazzle = Powerful Positive Feelings = Loyalty = Word-of-mouth Promotion = Long Term Success. It’s just that simple.

Treat these 3 Aha’s as the beginning of your journey.

Focus on getting started and creating this culture in your organization that will yield the end-game you want.

Cheers,
Roy
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Posted 3.26.12 at 04:53 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 21, 2012

Go Small or Go Home

Back to School for Sales 
Secrets to UnFORGETTABILITY 
Bonding is In; Flogging is Out

If you want to distinguish your organization from the Competitive Herd you must create VALUE for your Fans that is RELEVANT (something they really care about) and UNIQUE (something that ONLY you provide).

So how do you achieve Customer Relevancy? Here’s a formula for you: Individual Customer Relevancy = 1/Group Size. Customer Relevancy is inversely related to the size of the group the person is a part of.

Simply stated, the smaller the group you focus on, the more you can get to know that wants and desires of each individual in the group. AND the more relevant you can be to each person in terms of the value you create for them. If you are looking at a 1,000-person Tribe, you will typically know less about each individual in the Tribe than if you targeted a Fan Group of 10 people. It just makes sense.

The “average” customer doesn’t exist. Mass market myopia produces “round-the-corners” marketing where products are designed to satisfy everyone, But unfortunately these products end up being unremarkable, forgettable, common and lost in the blur of others in the market that we looking a customers the same way. Mass market mentality encourages customer irrelevancy.

Small is good. Smaller is better. They can be insatiable communicators. Small groups have effective and constant communication going on among the individuals in the group. They have Social Power in the sense that together, because of their connectivity, they are able to create a powerful word-of-mouth “epidemic” behind the ideas they like. Think about the marketing opportunities in a small, cohesive group of Fans that care about what you do and who are talking you up to others constantly. WOW!

Group Power in a marketing sense is being better understood today. Malcolm Gladwell in his excellent book, The Tipping Point, discusses the Rule of 150 which states that a group beyond 150 actually loses social power and tends to be ineffective in viral opportunities. So there’s a guideline. Go find a group of 150 Fans who love you, are connected with one another and who communicate with each other on a regular basis. Go deep with each and every one of them and learn their secrets to create personalized VALUE for them.

A BE DiFFERENT approach. A way to make your marketing UnFORGETTABLE. A winning formula.

Cheers,
Roy


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Posted 3.21.12 at 06:03 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)