Three Moments That Shape Customer Relationships

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Three decisive moments determine your future relationship with a customer. 1. Your “First Contact” Moment: Customers don’t care about your product or service – they care only about the amount of value your product or service can produce for them.  Be customer-centric.  Focus on learning their story, needs and goals.  How do they plan to achieve their goals?  Explore how your competencies can help them. If you work in isolation to solve only a customer’s …

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Circumstantial Leadership

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Leaders understand that success is the result of adapting to circumstances.  How much direct influence is required to achieve the goal?  When a significant change impacts the business or a crisis arises, a more directive approach is necessary.  When the organization is functioning well, then a more empowering style can be effective.  What remains constant, regardless of the circumstances, is the pull to be drawn into today’s problems, potentially diverting your attention from future opportunities …

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What Happens To You…Happens To Me

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We interact with this world through our five senses. We are feeling beings who think, not thinkers who feel. When you care about someone else, you are invested them – what happens to them, happens to you. When your child is recognized for an accomplishment, you feel the pride that they feel. When something bad happens to your good friend, you feel the pain they feel. When your employee or associate is acknowledged for achieving a goal, you …

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“I Can’t Get Meetings With Prospects!”

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So goes the common refrain from eager new sales people whose primary responsibility is to find new customers. Here are three ways to breakthrough and get meetings with prospects: Plan your attack.  Prospects don’t care about your product or service – they care only about the value you can produce for them.  Rather than knocking on any door you see, identify target prospects within market niches successfully served by your company.  Learn how your product …

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Why Purpose Matters

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Every business wants to be distinctive.  But often, small and mid-size companies are so consumed with surviving that the limited time invested in planning centers on leveraging competitive advantage, without appreciating the reason the business exists, beyond the need to make money. With this approach, the leaders of these businesses lose vital energy to drive action, elevate performance and achieve goals. Rediscovering Purpose motivates employee engagement and releases vital energy that drives action, elevates performance and …

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80% of Qualified Leads Get Wasted

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Last week, I attended a marketing presentation which revealed that 80% of qualified leads never get followed-up by sales personnel.  That really shocked me!  After all the increased investment in marketing communications and social media to generate leads, the return on that investment is dismal. Most of the businesses I know are dissatisfied with their lead generation so they keep investing in different methods to increase leads.  But if there is no prompt sales follow-up …

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Leading Through Volatility

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Cyclical revenue – lots of orders one quarter, not enough the next. Inconsistent cashflow – payables out of balance with receipts. Unpredictable profitability – decision-making is inhibited. Business is rarely stable, but volatility like this is becoming more commonplace. Defining such circumstances as “volatile” seems to suggest that, in the future, business conditions will settle down and return to a calmer state. But instability is well established now, challenging leaders to prove their effectiveness. Sustain …

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Working with Distributors – Quotas Aren’t Enough

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The working relationship between manufacturer and distributor is often defined by sales quotas.  But using only quotas to manage this vital affiliation does not preserve the relationship’s primary, mutually beneficial purpose of sustaining growth in the market.  When that purpose is unclear, and it becomes separated from the profit motive, bad things happen. The original purpose of the manufacturer-distributor working relationship was to increase sales by expanding market coverage in local markets.  For a while, …

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When They Don’t Get It, It’s Not Them!

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Many leaders believe that strong leadership and a clear plan are enough to align their people and muster the energy they need to act. But when people don’t seem to get your message, look first to yourself. When people know where they are headed, they typically try to move in that direction. When everyone is pursuing the same goals and they are encouraged to achieve great things, enthusiasm grows and energy is invested. People want …

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It’s Your Choice

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“Our customers buy only on price.  If we don’t offer the lowest price, they go elsewhere.  They don’t care about anything else…it’s just price.  That’s the way our industry works.” Annie was reacting to my challenge that acting like a commodity is a choice you make. “So is your key strategy to always offer the lowest price…in every circumstance, for every customer?”  When Annie replied, “Not really,” I asked: “Why do customers contact you?” Annie …

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