One Percent Selling™ — Know Your Customer, Get the Sale

How many times have you finished a significant purchase personally or authorized a strategic possession for your business without trusting the salesperson behind the product or service? Chances are, your answer is nil. Features, advantages, and benefits are essential, but people – not specs – will constantly be the basis for determining who gets the sale.

Several years ago, I gave an opening keynote speech for a financial group in Montgomery, AL. In a letter of appreciation, my client commented on how far I went to become acquainted with more than the company’s fine points, but each senior executive in the room. Reading the company circular and knowing some up to date birthdays and anniversaries in the room did not hurt, either. The additional effort I made to be familiar with my client on a corporate and personal level, led to 13 spin-off engagements with the same client.

How much do you customers know you care? How well do you know your customers? Make a list of ten questions you will habitually ask your customers to get to know them. Who are their in-house corporate champions? What separates their best customers from their average customers? What major objective do they want to complete in twelve months? What are the prevalent obstacles in their way? How can you get them over that stumbling block? The list can go on; it’s up to you.

Make the effort to invest in your customer’s hearts as much as you do their minds and pocketbooks. You’ll find a great deal of success; the kind of success held in reserve for The Elite One Percent™.

E1 Living™ — October 2009

Where we are, and where we will be in life is a straight result of our decisions. It’s not chance, luck, or timing – it’s what we decided to do, or not do, that put us in the place we are today. Want that place to get better? To change? Here are ten actions you can take – right now – to move closer to the E1™ life waiting for you.

1. Let the good thoughts roll. For this moment, stop thinking about all of the “weaknesses” you’re supposed to be working on. All gain begins with accepting yourself: you are who you are. Make the most of you. Make a record of ten things you love about yourself. Each time you have an unconstructive, fix-that-weakness contemplation; substitute it with an affirmative thought from your list.
2. Get crystal clear. What, precisely, are you going to complete this morning? Today? This week? Now, stop planning for an instant. Until we master what we will do – accurately – in the present, we have no business planning for the future. How, specifically, do today’s and this week’s accomplishments fit into your monthly goals? You can achieve clarity on your life goals by first deciding what you will get done in the next several hours.
3. Stack your deck. List your three highest proficiencies and assess whether you are putting them to work for you. If you’re fantastic at sales, are you selling rather than managing? If you’re terrific with numbers, are you analyzing rather than shuffling files? If you’re the innovative one at your company, are you creatively destroying your business or competing for limited market share?
4. Be a control freak. Are there areas in life that you have let slide? Family? Health? Occupation? Wealth creation? Once you identify which aspect needs work, write out a single task for taking back control. Send your kids a text message that pizza is being delivered at 530 PM – be there! Enjoy fresh fruit instead of ice cream for dessert. Write an article for your industry’s leading magazine. Send half of this year’s raise straight to your 401(k).
5. Be extraordinary. Think of your best five clients. Do you know what they yearn for and could do with? Have you asked them? Can you help them pull it off? Write down the ways your business can help your clients prevail; update your clients of how you can help them; and, go get it done. Your extraordinary actions will go beyond your competitor’s run-of-the-mill dealings.
6. Do more by doing less. There is a huge difference between being busy and being productive. Have you ever worked one of those twelve-hour workdays and wondered, “What have I really done today?” Many distractions and few actions of discipline are typically to blame. What do you need to start doing? Send calls to voice mail for part of a day. Dare yourself to check email three times each day – over morning coffee, after lunch, and as you plan tomorrow. Hold meetings for decision-making only; leave the updates to Facebook and Twitter for the end of the day; and, spend less time on FarmVille and more time on what moves you onward.
7. Succeed on your terms, not others. Have you ever thought about success in life based on your description of success? What others want from us and what we want from ourselves are, characteristically, contrasting. This leads to dissatisfaction and tension. So, define success yourself and be gutsy enough to go get it. Skip “Guys Night Out,” record the game on your DVR, and roast S’mores out back with your family. Save money, borrow wisely, and focus on creating added cash flow rather than the most you can borrow. Eat right, exercise more, and look years younger. In short, look at how the majority classify success and run as far away from that description as you can. You’ll find that it’s tough to do what no one else will, but effortless to benefit from what no one else can.
8. Do some good in your community. A few years ago, my wife’s MOMS Club held a food drive to support our local Settlement House. I helped to deliver the food and necessaries to Settlement House. Unloading the goods, I looked at man with a daughter the same age as mine. The only genuine, fundamental difference between him and me? He needed a hand in life and I was helping to lend him and his family that hand. I found my cause for good in my neck-of-the-woods and committed considerable resources to aid, rather than a bunch of $10 checks to help an assortment of causes. Where can you and your business blessings make a giant difference in your community?
9. Be a model for your kids. Our kids observe – and model – us more directly than we believe. I learned this when Jayne, my wife, informed me that Molly, our daughter, has just finished lecturing “the damned cat.” Point taken, lesson learned. If we want our kids to be attracted to learning, they should see us reading books. If we want our kids to show consideration for others, we should advise them to get their ding-dong ditching finished before 830 PM. If we want our kids to appreciate that romance still exists in our marriage, we should hire sitters and enjoy a needed night out.
10. Spend time with your real friends. In excellent times, real friends rejoice with you. In hard-hitting times, real friends chip in where they’re needed. Odds are, you have three authentic friends – the ones who see you pleased, gloomy, enjoyable, angry, certain, and concerned. They still love you and what you add to their life. Call those three friends today; get together with them this month.

Do You Measure Up To Your Customers’ Expectations?

One of my more well-liked E1™ speaking programs is titled, “Beyond the Suggestion Box – How Your Customers Will Redesign Your Products, Services, Processes, and Business Model.” Fundamentally, the keynote speech is a dialogue about the course of engaging openly with your most loyal and fervent customers. It’s a very convincing, marketing catalyst that helps to enumerate the hard-to-pin-down links between satisfaction, loyalty, market share and profits. With personal and professional examples and familiarity from the likes of Starbucks, Hallmark, Harley-Davidson, LEGO, Umpqua Holdings, and more – it’s relatively apparent that the best companies (E1™ companies) listen to their customers officially and repeatedly.

Indeed, today, the CEO of a Nebraska-based bank client of mine advised me that a panel of the bank’s most loyal customers will be present at an offsite strategic planning session next month where I will speak and facilitate their meeting. Now that’s co-creating value with customers.

Just as significant as listening to your customers for what they desire in future products and services is listening to your customers for what they want you to measure in everyday transactions with your company. Your customers want to be involved in creating metrics that hold you accountable to them. Support is growing demonstrating how customers will not put up with the hurried and tiresome service that is all too common.

Earlier this year, we asked what measurements of service customers would like to observe companies quantify. From our findings, we designed an E1™ program to address – in hands-on detail – how to measure, manage, and implement each finding. Surprisingly, the metrics of efficiency – on-hold time, transaction time, calls dropped, etc – did not emerge. While the measurements of competence are – without doubt – important gauges, customers cared most about front line knowledge and first-hand resolutions. Moreover, the list of ten findings was more about slowing down than hurrying through a transaction, resulting in the type of service or experience that customers find objectionable.

So what matters need measurement, according to customers?

1. Have well-informed employees – 65%.
2. Attend to my needs on first contact – 64%.
3. Treat me like a valued customer – 62%.
4. Express desire to meet my needs – 54%.
5. Promptly retrieve my information – 49%.
6. Provide good value for my money – 49%.
7. Have well-mannered employees – 45%.
8. Be a company/brand I can depend on – 43%.
9. Deal with me practically – 38%.
10. Provide me with pertinent/custom-made service – 31%.
    

To achieve the most excellent appreciation of what customers truly experience, customer service managers should draw on an assortment of information resources: customer satisfaction surveys; net promoter scores; customer segment analyses; behavioral data; recorded customer-to-staff member conversations; and informal communications with customers. From this information, consistently gathered and evaluated, managers can embark on a plan to better recognize and lead the most important facets of the customer experience – those received directly from the customer.

In dissecting, designing, measuring, and improving your customer’s experience with your product or service, your company can transform its image and brand, making you more essential – more indispensable – to your customer’s life.  With clearly-defined and well-implemented front line leadership behaviors, the “how” of “wow” is delineated, allowing you to understand and demonstrate your distinctiveness in a jam-packed marketplace.  In a world where first-rate customer service is the expected norm, it’s time to abandon being just competitive and concentrate on becoming a required, central part of life.  Won’t your competitors wish they were you?

Corporate Boards – The Shortfall of Conventional Wisdom

Much like the conventional thoughts of how Board’s operate, there exist conventional ideas of who makes for a good Board member. The following list describes common beliefs (in bold) about the requirements to construct a high-quality Board and the regular practices of an elite Board.

1. Board members should be current or former CEOs. The skills required of a CEO are unlike than those for a Board member. CEOs must be hands-on and ready to execute strategy. Boards are more hands-off and oversee strategy. Further, only a small fraction of Board members regularly acquire education on governance expertise. While valuable to a Board, members who are external CEOs should receive schooling on successful governance skills.
2. The past CEO should be on the Board. Assuming the previous CEO resigned or retired on fine terms, some Boards keep or place the former CEO on the Board for historical reasons or stability of leadership. The principal challenge is the de facto passing on of leadership to the current CEO. Does the previous CEO’s presence help, hinder, or hurt the leadership influence of the existing CEO? Do the Board and former CEO ruminate on “how we did it in the past” versus what the present CEO believes should occur in the future?
3. Board members should be more seasoned. Many Boards are made up of members who have been on the Board for many years, sometimes many decades. While age is not a limiting factor for serving on the Board, does your Board adequately represent the demographics of your customer base? Some Boards may press to add greater numbers of youth to the Board as a balance measure. Does this take away from experience? The key is to discuss, as a Board, how your ideal Board might look, in a demographic sense. Then, over time, work to nominate or appoint Directors who fit that need.
4. Being financially invested in the company is a reliable qualification. Equity involvement does not always equal complete commitment. A very large segment of Board members for Fortune 500 companies hold very small proportion of their investable assets in the stock of the company they serve as a director. And while using your company’s products or services extensively demonstrates consumer commitment, it doesn’t mean much in terms of governance skills.
5. Regular Board meeting attendance equals appropriate governance. A popular motivational phrase might read, “99 percent of life is showing up,” but that is not the case as a measurement of successful Board habits and skills. Being physically present is extremely important; however, how one engages during a Board meeting is more essential.
6. Large Boards and committees make for better governance. A large number of Board members may add defense for a diverse Board argument, but it usually ends up as a case study for too many “hands in the pot.” The optimal size for most Boards is seven since it is large enough for an assortment of viewpoints, yet small enough to manage properly. Boards larger than seven in number work best when each Board member is wholly engaged and committed to following the tasks where the Board wants most involvement.
7. Independence makes for best governance. In principle, the lion’s shares of all Boards are independent. The accountants and examiners can verify it in their annual reports. However, because a Board is independent does not make that Board engaged and effective. Many of the publicly-traded company disasters of the past decade were businesses with an, officially, independent Board. Only the habits of progressive, engaged Boards make for the best levels of governance.

E1™ Living – Let Your Mind Lead for a While

The six inches sandwiched between your ears may very well be the most valuable section of real estate on the planet. For when it comes to really living an elite – E1™ — life, the substance of your success exists in your mind before it ever makes its approach to dreams, goals, strategies, plans, and actions. Below, are ten measures you can take without delay to assent to your mind guiding you on a passageway to E1™ living.

1. Feed your mind. It’s been said that you can tell a lot about a person by the books he reads, or doesn’t read for that matter. What books are on your nightstand? On your desk at work? For me, it’s Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Chasing the Rabbit by Steven Spear, respectively. To lead a successful E1™ life, you need to be teachable. A key element is the motivation to continue learning about the world where we live, lived, and will live.
   
2. Set a strategy for your marriage or significant relationship. With a little planning, you can assemble an award-winning enterprise in your marriage. Write down one word that describes what you would like from your marriage. Have your spouse do the same. Compare notes. Talk about differences. Find similarities. See eye to eye on what you both believe is your mission. Now, set some substantial goals based on your united mission. Jayne and I completed this assignment and developed 13 action items that carry out our marriage mission.
3. Make a surprise date with your family. This week, be thankful for your family and reallocate your priorities. You’ll be taken back how much they detect that you’ve thought ahead and broken the mold on their behalf. Go ahead and keep your standing Saturday movie matinee. Stay true to the rituals that make your family only one of its kind. But, stir it up once. Announce that you’ll be home early for lunch – and stay home to swim all afternoon. Get up earlier on Sunday and let your family awaken to the aroma of your famous pancakes and center-cut bacon. Toilet paper Grandma’s house, but clean it up for her the next morning.
4. Remove yourself from toxic relationships. Do you have friends where your exchanges seem to end up in unconstructive territory – disapproval, hearsay, and disagreeable about life instead of seeking solutions? Do you feel like the world is a less significant place when you leave their company? It might be high time to disassociate. It’s all right to remain acquaintances and share the infrequent chitchat; however, these people are not adding to your development in life. As an alternative…
5. Hang around people you want to be more like. If you’re endeavoring to develop your business, are you mixing with those who have developed businesses? If you’re striving to add some balance in your life, are you associating with those who, undoubtedly, have the sense of balance you seek? I’ve always understood that if I encircle myself with like-minded people, at my ambition level or above, I’ll be inspired (or irritated) to progress. If I connect with non-E1™ thinkers who would rather discuss than do – it’s only a matter of time before I slide down that slippery slope called Run of the Mill.
6. Take a shot at a task you’re avoiding. What remains of your tasks for the day, week, month, or year that you’ve evaded in order to complete the easier, less agonizing, responsibilities? Of course, you know that the job you’ve avoided is one that can lead to greater success. “But, it’s so risky…I might flub the sales call…I was up so late last night…My heart will be in it tomorrow.” Stop. Now. Whatever your excuses, get rid of them for one day. Make the investment. Pick up the phone. Remind yourself that those who will not do can never take pleasure in the payback given to those who get up and do.
7. For one day, stick to a list. You know what you need to do. You know how to prioritize what you need to do. Just make the list and finish the priorities. Finish # 1. Move on to # 2. Finish # 2. Move on to # 3. You get the picture. Send your phone calls to voice mail for an hour. Check email three times each day (and turn off that electronic notification that you have a new email). Stay off the Internet. Your Facebook post can wait and you don’t need to know what your Facebook friends had for dinner, saw at the movies, or scored on the “Which Celebrity are You?” quiz. I take this line of attack every day and find myself with “new” readily available hours every week.
8. Prove your internal chatter wrong. Oh, the stuff we tell ourselves: we need more experience; no one will buy; I’m too old; I’ll never afford it; and, the list goes on. Quit listening to all of that self-defeating babble in your head. Single out one ambition you have wanted to achieve, but allowed defeating thoughts to disrupt you. Take one step toward your goal. The chatter volume will drop off. Take another step. It’s getting quieter. Take another. Before long, you’re where you want to be and moving toward the next level.
9. When lightning strikes, write it down. Every day, we have ideas or thoughts that can better a process, patch up a problem, or add happiness to someone’s day. Too often, we “make a mental note” and later have a “mental freeze.” Keep a record of your ideas and anything that makes you pause throughout your day. Put a notebook in your pocket to summarize your compilation of ideas for later discovery. Or just tap your thoughts into the “Notes” feature of your smart phone device. Later, you’ll be able to turn your “a-ha” moments into actions that bring value to your business and life.
10. Perfect your pitch. Come up with a list of ways your product or service benefits your customer. How do you add to their top line revenue? How do you help keep expenses at bay? How do you boost market share? How do you build superior public awareness? The more you recognize the value your business provides – and the innovative insight you have along the way – the greater your sales, service and profits become.