Relationships are the currency of business. Social media strategist Brian Basilico shared this key piece of wisdom with us recently. He stated that “one-on-one” is one of the most powerful business tools, and that people do business with people they know, like, and trust. The one thing we want to focus on for 2015 is relationships. How we relate to our customers is the key factor which drives our sales.
Jeff Magee, our conference keynote speaker and monthly sales trainer, informed us that TARP (Technical Assistance Research Programs) has found that an organization can increase their profitability five times faster through customer service initiatives over any other single advertising, marketing, or selling endeavor. Don’t we all want to close more deals? Of course we do! So, we may need to change. And change, as we all know, is hard.
3 Steps to Change
As Brian pointed out, in baseball, you can’t get to 2nd base without touching 1st. No skipping! In order to create lasting change in our businesses, and lives, we need to follow Jeff Magee’s three easy steps:
- Awareness
- Action Plan
- Commitment
Having a trusted accountability partner can make all the difference in evaluating your needs, crafting your goals, and achieving them!
Get Sticky, Navigate the Meta, Earn the Right
As Jeff related, the two main reasons why customers leave an organization are communication (25%) and perception (45%). Al Lesko taught us that the “stickiness factor” is the ability of a delivered message or process to make an impact and stick in a person’s memory. To make sure our message is sticky, we need to be adaptive, understand the audience, address their concerns, be aware of what they need to know, and be as active as necessary for them in the process.
Rebecca Monet taught us that, if we want to close more deals, we need to navigate our customers’ meta programs. Is their attention directed toward what they want or away from what they don’t want? Is their frame of reference internal or external? As a decision-maker, do they prefer many diverse options with lots of time to choose, or only a few strong choices with a quick turnaround time? Learning about our customers will help us build a stronger relationship with them.
Finally, as Andy Lamedman shared, we need to earn the right to continue discussions with our customers. How do we do this? By reassuring our customers of our integrity, reliability, and ability to understand and recommend the appropriate solution. We need to view objections as questions we can answer, not as obstacles we have to overcome.
Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is
Here at the FBA, our primary focus for 2015 is going to be on our valued members, who are the most important part of our business. We have many improvements planned for next year!
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