Bob Schultek

Bob has more than 30 years of service as a senior sales and business development executive, CEO and business owner. His expertise includes customer-partnered business development, strategic planning, sales management, customer service, operational alignment, lean process analysis and improvement, quality assurance, and performance management. He has worked in the energy, medical device, bioscience & pharmaceutical, discrete and process manufacturing, packaging and distribution, communications and information technology, and business-to-business service industries.

“A Customer Is Never Out of Warranty”

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Many companies invest heavily to measure their investment in customer support. They track the cost per hour or other metrics to monitor their investment in the support function when, in fact, their business would gain more insight by measuring customer retention. Customer support is not a cost center, it’s a profit center. The title of this blog comes from a Seth Godin blog posting that highlights the increasing value of preserving customer relationships. On the …

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Three Ways to Ensure You Get Paid

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An order is no good unless you are paid for it. Sales folks are often compensated for the orders they book. This makes sense – without orders, there is no business. But getting the order is only part one of the transaction. Getting paid creates the profit to compensate the salesperson, and everyone else. Proficient salespeople realize that they share responsibility for ensuring that their company gets paid for every order they book. Follow these …

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How Do You Convince Customers To Give You The Order?

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Earning your customer’s commitment requires many steps, and Grolistic has teamed up with SalesFitness™ to create 6 video resources highlighting successful techniques that produce thriving customer relationships. This video, Stakeholders, covers the issues of: Identifying key influencers (stakeholders) in the customer’s decision making process Learning how to address the stakeholders goals & needs to gain their commitment SalesFitness™ exploits mobile technology and the best of online learning principles to improve sales performance by disrupting and revolutionizing the sales training paradigm. At …

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Is Keeping Your Promise Obsolete?

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David and I were working to strengthen his company’s unique offering, the distinctive value proposition his company “owns” in the marketplace, when I asked: “When you propose a solution, you are making a promise to your customer. Do you understand the emotional bond created when you call it a promise?” “A promise?” he replied. “That’s a really jaded word these days. It sounds outdated or obsolete. Does anyone actually believe in promises much less use the word? “Promise” …

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Trade Value for Price Reductions

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When you hear “I can purchase this elsewhere at a lower price,” remember that your quoted price is linked to the total value you are promising to produce…and evaluating value goes both ways. It’s just a trade…the customer is trading you price for the value to be delivered. Focus on defining value. Buyers might think of value as how much you are willing to discount while you see value as the additional benefits you will …

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Is ‘Busyness’ Your Excuse?

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There are only a finite number of productive hours in your day. Every leader is busy and often it feels like there isn’t enough time to accomplish everything you planned. Is ‘busyness’ your excuse for not investing enough time to build your business? Is it sabotaging your growth? How many of your hours are wasted on simple, routine activities that rob you of valuable time and distract you from your planned productive day? You shift …

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3 Decisive Customer Touch Points

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There are 3 decisive touch points with each customer that determine if you will earn trust and future preference.  Doing more than expected during these 3 key moments changes everything about how your customer feels about you. In truth, how your customer feels is more influential than the facts you present. We may think of ourselves as thinking creatures that feel, but biologically we are feeling creatures that think. (Jill Bolte Taylor: My Stroke of …

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“What Really Moves Us Is Feelings, Not Facts”

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“There are a thousand ways to get noticed, but there’s only one way to really touch someone. And that’s to give them a reason to care, a story they can believe in. The truth is that what really moves us is feelings, not facts.” Bernadette Jiwa, author of “difference.” Discover more insights about re-imagining your business and reinventing your marketing through relationships, engagement and growth from the newly released book “difference.” Seth Godin endorses “difference” …

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Purpose Drives Profit

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Bad things happen when profit is separated from Purpose. The negative consequences include poor quality, myopic focus and short-term thinking that can  be destructive. Over time, organizations become consumed with surviving and reacting to the marketplace. Purpose can be forgotten, beyond the need to make money. Yet evidence is growing, particularly on Wall Street, that an organization’s commitment to fulfilling its Purpose achieves goals and elevates performance. “A great strategy without a compelling purpose is like …

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The Certainty of Unpredictability

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Business planning is still a productive exercise. Not because the document created by the planning process is so effective but because developing the plan engages leaders from all functional areas in the company. Very few plans work as conceived; business is too unpredictable over a period of time. But companies are still accountable for getting profitable results so why do some succeed while others fail? Few strategies are actually implemented as planned. Real world circumstances …

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