 Every time a customer calls it’s an opportunity. The only question is: how are you taking advantage of it?
Answer HELLO! Not a thank you for the call, telling me how important it is while you put me on hold for the next available agent, or to “serve me better” ask me to select from among the following eight options.
Selecting from among the following eight options is not one of MY options – and I have the money – and you want the money – and you need the money – so wise up.
The last things to cut are sales, service, and training. The FIRST thing to cut is executive pay, then management pay, then eliminate middle management as needed. OR MAKE THEM SALESPEOPLE, and have them contribute to the effort.
Meanwhile customers need help, service, and answers. Your ability to help them in a timely manner and serve them memorably determines your reputation and your fate.
HERE’S HOW TO SERVE:
• Start friendly NO MATTER how they act or talk.
• Get off your high (pc) horse.
• Don’t worry about how you feel – worry about how they feel.
• Ask them how you can help them the most.
• Help them with whatever they need.
• Don't tell them what you can't do, tell them what you can do.
• Get them to agree that the solution you offer, or answer they need, is the one they are expecting, and the one they are pleased with (not “satisfied” with).
• Engage them personally during the conversation.
• Make CERTAIN customers are happy as a result of the call.
• Follow through on your promises with action and communication.
Here’s the secret to service success:
• Keep it short - but get the info you need to help them.
• If the customer is angry, keep it real short, but arrange a second call after the resolve. Tell them what will happen in their favor, and tell them fast.
Follow up with the unexpected to set up a sale. I refer to it as: PLUS ONE
• Email thanks. Tell them how much you enjoyed talking to them and how much you appreciate their business.
• Email them back their idea or suggestions.
• Email them back their solution, or your promise to repair.
• Have a salesperson call after the situation was resolved.
CUSTOMER REALITY:
• I don’t want to wait on the phone.
• I especially don’t want to listen to your self-serving messages as I wait.
• I don’t want to wait on line.
• I don’t want to be told no.
• I don’t want excuses about why you can’t.
• I don’t want to hear about your policy...
Read the rest of this article
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Jeffrey Gitomer LIVE! – Charleston, WV
March 11th & 12th
Charleston Managers: Develop your personal plan to find and keep a winning, loyal, well-trained, and self-directed sales team. This seminar will provide strategies and techniques about real-world sales leadership, plus self-evaluation to measure your present level of achievement.
Jeffrey Gitomer LIVE! – Charleston, WV: Regardless of the economy and the current circumstance in your industry, sales are still being made. The only question is “Who’s making them?” This seminar will provide you with the ANSWERS you need to succeed, and you will learn new strategies and ideas about how to sell any product or any service in any economy -- without sacrificing price.
Click here to Register NOW!
Charleston, WV special Managers Event
Jeffrey Gitomer LIVE! Charleston, WV
Jeffrey Gitomer LIVE! – Pittsburgh, PA
April 22nd & 23rd, 2010Pittsburgh Managers – Develop your personal plan to find and keep a winning, loyal, well-trained, and self-directed sales team. This seminar will provide strategies and techniques about real-world sales leadership, plus self-evaluation to measure your present level of achievement.
Jeffrey Gitomer LIVE! Pittsburgh, PA – Join the global authority on sales, Jeffrey Gitomer for a seminar on SALES ATTITUDE. Learn how to uncover buying motives, double your sales, get your price without sacrificing profit, and establish a YES! Attitude for a lifetime of success.
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Jeffrey Gitomer's Pittsburgh Managers Event
Jeffrey Gitomer LIVE! – Pittsburgh, PA
Want to reach my public seminar audiences of 500+ LOCAL business people in your community? Would you like your company to receive additional sales training from me while I’m in your city? Contact Sara or Heather at 800-242-5388 or email publicseminars@gitomer.com for information.
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Jeffrey,
I am an experienced salesperson who started a new sales position in another state. The company’s reputation was good and was confirmed by outside sources before I took the job. I quickly realized my values and the company's values were different. I have been told by my sales manager and owner of the company to lie, to current and potential customers, when it is more convenient than telling the truth. I was told this is the way business is done and will not change. Do you have any suggestions?
Sol
Sol,
Everyone has a code of standards and a code of ethics by which they live. My recommendation is that you follow your heart. If it’s the truth you want to stick by (and I agree with you) find another job as fast as you can. Don’t burn the bridge where you are, give two weeks notice then be gone.
Best regards,
Jeffrey
Jeffrey,
I am an innovative sales, motivation, and wellness coach based in Curacao. I am wondering how can I better position myself worldwide to become a more sought after speaker and trainer?
Rodney
Rodney,
Look at my model: I have a website, I have an email magazine, I have a blog, and I am all over social media including a fan page on Facebook and a YouTube channel. But more important than all that, I write useable, relatable content. I have given you the formula, in 10 years you will be fine.
Best regards,
Jeffrey
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"The Write Way: How to Sell EXACTLY What They Want to Buy"
By Josh Sundquist
Back in high school, I was what my mother would call a writing prodigy, but what you would probably call completely full of myself.
Perfect example. At age sixteen I got the idea to write a book. About myself. (Yeah, like I said.)
Granted, I had a relatively interesting story to tell: I lost my left leg to childhood cancer and went on to become an internationally ranked ski racer.
The problem was I just didn't know how to tell it. Instead of thinking about what people would want to read, all I thought about was what I would want to write. Unfortunately, it turns out that the style I wanted to write it in was, well, pretty boring.
In other words, my manuscript sucked.
I'm not going to lie to you, though. I thought it was really good at the time. So I was crushed when no publisher wanted it. For about two years I literally wouldn't walk into a bookstore because it was too depressing to see all those other books that had gotten published while my manuscript sat on my computer.
Eventually, at age twenty-three, I had an epiphany: Instead of trying to sell the kind of book I wanted to write, I should have been trying to write the kind of book people wanted to buy.
Once I figured that out, I made a list of the top ten bestselling books in my genre, childhood memoir, and read them all. Then I brainstormed what they had in common, things like poetic language and a focus on family relationships. They were elements that should've been obvious, but for some reason I had always been too wrapped up in my own ideas to notice.
I wrote a completely new manuscript using this list as a guide, and guess what? Within months I had a six-figure book deal with one of the biggest publishing houses in America.
Okay, you might be saying, cute story, but what's it got to do with me, a professional salesperson trying to plow through some emails on a Tuesday morning?
A lot, actually. Here's how you can adopt my strategy to your situation:
1. IDENTIFY THE LEADERS - List the top ten performers in your industry or the top ten products in your niche.
2. ANALYZE - Take an afternoon and study these market leaders. Become an expert. Know more about your competitors' product than they do.
3. LIST OUTSTANDING CHARACTERISTICS - For each of the ten market leaders you studied, make a list of all outstanding, interesting, or unique characteristics you noticed about them.
4. CONNECT THE DOTS - You should have ten lists of characteristics: One for each market leader. Now look at all the lists side by side and highlight any characteristics you find on multiple lists.
5. RANK THE CHARACTERISTICS - Rank these highlighted characteristics in terms of their frequency. For example, when I did this exercise, I found that "an emphasis on family relationships" was a characteristic of all ten market-leading memoirs, so I listed it first. There next most frequent characteristic was in eight of the memoirs, so it came second, and so on.
Now you have a list of the demands of your marketplace. In other words, you now know exactly what your customers want to buy...and if you're like me, you may discover that what they want to buy is different than what you've been trying to sell.
Josh Sundquist's new book, JUST DON'T FALL: HOW I GREW UP, CONQUERED ILLNESS, AND MADE IT DOWN THE MOUNTAIN is now in bookstores nationwide. It's also available on Amazon.com. To get a free copy of the first chapter, please visit Josh's website at JoshSundquist.com or send him an email at Josh@JoshSundquist.com
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Start with YES! Every Single Time and Flip Satisfied Customers to Loyal ones.
Treat your worst customers with YES! and they will become your best. Treat your best customers with YES! and they will become your most loyal. This week find, build, and keep a YES! Attitude for a lifetime of success with Jeffrey's Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, learn to turn satisfied customers into loyal, lifetime friends with Jeffrey's Customer Loyalty Concepts flip book, and refresh before saying YES! with a tin of Curiously Strong YES! Mints. All for $29.00 (a $43.00 value)!
Click here to order now
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“I spotted these at the Jacksonville Airport looking for your Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude... Found it. Great read!” -Jean
If you see Jeffrey or Jeffrey’s books
SEND YOUR PHOTO to ezine@gitomer.com.
If it’s posted, you’ll receive an e-book!
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There always remains an opportunity to make a new start.
Though it may not seem so when you first encounter a serious blow, you can never lose two of the most important assets you have. These are the power of your mind and your freedom to use it. Once you have turned them to understanding what laid you low, you can begin forming new plans. You may not have the money you once had; you may lack the allies you had cultivated. But you still have the benefit of a universe that eventually rewards honest effort, as well as gaining the experience of mistakes you will never make again. Remember, no matter where you are now, whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve.
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These principles were written over 100 years ago but they're still good and they still work. This is one of the fascinating things about principles. If they worked once, chances are they'll work again. This is a good book to keep on your desk and refer to daily. It's something that will give you a bit of motivation and something good to put in your work day. -Susanna
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Jeffrey's Sales Rant is a clip from his online training video library.
watch the rant now
(you need it)
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“Quality performance starts with a positive attitude!”
-Jeffrey Gitomer The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude
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Speaking and training worldwide more than 150 times a year, Jeffrey provides answers, informs, challenges, and inspires sales forces and upper management for hundreds of the largest and most successful companies. You and your people want someone who can make a difference. The difference is Gitomer.Click here to hire Jeffrey for your next event. |
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“I can directly attribute tens of thousands of dollars of incremental sales to TrainOne, easily a 10X return on the price. I wish all my investments had that type of performance impact.” -David
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To Serve is to Sell
By Justin Gittelman
Instead of looking for how to be of service to others, many salespeople are on the hunt for the next commission. Most salespeople have the concept of reciprocity reversed and show up to meetings with “commission breath,” reeking of the essence and sole desire to just close the deal.
Customers can smell it from a mile away.
The key is to start the wheels on the tried-and-true Law of Reciprocity by serving. Earl Nightingale, author and radio host wrote in The Strangest Secret, “If you give - you shall receive.” He was one of the first to apply the phrase to commerce, but the concept carries strength as evidenced by religious text and philosophical doctrine. It’s time we applied it to our day-to-day business.
Here are three steps to take now to create a service provider mindset:
1. Willingness – demonstrating the willingness to voluntarily and ungrudgingly see past selfish needs or the illusion that you “have to make a sale” next time you’re on an important sales call.
2. Gratitude – to positively emote thankfulness and a real appreciation for what you already have. Gratitude is an attitude! It’s also contagious. People like to do business with positive, optimistic people.
3. Desire – To be your very best on every single occasion. Not just when you think it counts. Show the real and authentic you. Give yourself even if there is no commission or immediate sale to be made.
Shifting from “How can I make a commission” to “How may I serve the customer” makes the difference, especially in this economy where penny pinching is the new norm. In this year’s Business Week rankings, based on data from J.D. Power & Associates, more than half of the top 25 brands showed improved customer service scores over last year.
These businesses improved service while cutting costs. JW Marriott cross-trained administrative assistants to step in as banquet servers when needed. Zappos.com launched a VIP program to serve return customers. Ace Hardware consolidated operations and put the savings into longer evening and weekend hours for customer calls. The number one ranking was Amazon, who consistently went above and beyond to help customers with products, even replacing those lost in the mail.
Being a service provider means doing whatever is necessary to fill a customer’s void. Even if it requires not earning a commission or making that sale. Why? Because, either with this customer or another, sooner or later, it will pay off.
While staying at a hotel in Charlotte, NC a friend of mine checked out and attended his last meeting for the business trip. After the meeting, he had a couple hours to pass until his flight. He called the shuttle service that the hotel provided when he was a guest and asked the shuttle driver if he could possibly be picked up and stay at the hotel lounge until it was time for him to go to the airport.
Even though he had already checked out of the hotel, the shuttle driver said, “Sir, our service doesn’t stop just because you’ve checked out.”
My friend was shocked with the level of willingness this shuttle driver displayed. He truly understood the ‘service provider’ mindset. The driver served first, worried about a tip or charge second.
When looking at the bottom line, it is more cost effective to make a good impression and gain a repeat client than market to new customers. According to the Customer Service Institute, 65 percent of a company's business comes from existing customers, and it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one satisfied. Remember, willingness, gratitude and desire will lead to the attitude of service. Take these steps now and you will continue to be amazed at the richness your business will reward for you, your family, your friends, and your community.
Justin Gittelman is a Gitomer-certified speaker and business growth expert. To book Justin Gittelman for your next event, visit www.GitomerCertified.com or contact the friendly folks at Buy Gitomer via email or by calling 704-333-1112.
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Your Success Strategies.
Jeffrey, we recently started a coffee company in Tampa, Florida and are selling our gourmet coffees retail through our website and wholesale to specialty stores and high-end grocery stores. I was thrilled to see that your E-Zine is called Sales Caffeine. I recently picked up one of your books and read it. Within a couple of weeks, I read three more. It will suffice to say that I started this company thinking that all I needed was my marketing skills. WRONG! Sales skills have proven to be really important. I've had to get some practical tips under my belt very quickly. Some of your suggestions have already helped me so "THANK YOU!" -Vicky
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Each week, we feature a salesperson's success story. Please send your stories to gill@gitomer.com. If your story is published, we'll send you a free e-Book!
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