Step Up Results

Tristin Barbar -Jim ‘N Nicks Bar-B-Q, Manager– South Cobb, Smyrna, Ga.

Recently, I went back to one of my favorite restaurants, Jim ‘N Nicks Bar-B-Q, and I saw Tristin Barbar, the store manager.  Seeing Tristian reminded me that I owed him an ‘Observation in Excellence’.  I want to recognize Tristin. You see over over the New Year’s holiday Tristin exceeded my expectations; Excellence in thought, Excellence in execution.  He earned his PhD in results because he stepped up.

I want to acknowledge Tristian’s ability to stay cool under pressure; to go the extra yard, and to provide Excellence with a smile. You see, I had a big event around New Year’s Day, and as you could imagine there were a number of customers in the restaurant.  Tristin let me sample some ribs; spare ribs vs. baby back ribs vs. smoke turkey vs. smoked links.  He had an ability to customize my order, to customize our conversation, to make me feel like I was the only customer in the restaurant when there were 52 others, and he got the order right! It was done right, done well, and done on time! Tristin stepped up and earned his PhD in Results!

And, a little pat on the back for Jim ‘N Nicks Bar-B-Q too

If you haven’t had Jim N’ Nicks, you’re sleeping.  Get on it, Get with it!  They have good food, done right.  Hey! A little barbeque, soul food, collard greens, black-eyed peas, every now and then, along with some cheese biscuits won’t bother nobody. So, if you’re looking for some great food and some great service – Jim ‘N Nicks Bar-B-Q in Smyrna, Ga.

It’s this kind of action that leads to client loyalty and obtaining additional business. The market has STEPPED UP -have you?

www.DanielGrissom.com and www.stepupresults.com

Ann Page – Nordstrom, Phipps Plaza, Atlanta, Ga.

 A couple weeks ago, I was at Nordstrom and went over to the Men’s cologne section to buy my favorite fragrance “Gendarme”, a light fresh fragrance. I met a lady named Ann Page.  She was client-centered. How do I know?  Her excellence and her smile translated into me buying a bigger size of the cologne, and even taking a look at a new product called ‘Anthony for Men’.

The Anthony products were very expensive, premium products. I bought the facial scrub, the facial wash, and the facial serum.  What made the difference in me spending more at Nordstrom? The difference was Ann! It wasn’t the product; it was the person who made the difference in terms of me spending more and being pleased to go back to Nordstrom, which I did 10 days later.  I missed Ann Page on the return visit, but I brought more of the ‘Anthony’ product.

Ann Page of Nordstrom – Phipps Plaza, Atlanta, Georgia earned her PhD in Results by STEPPING UP and committing to excellence with a smile!

It’s this kind of action that leads to client loyalty and obtaining additional business. The market has STEPPED UP - have you?

www.DanielGrissom.com and www.stepupresults.com

Do you have regular meaningful contact with your employees?

More often than not, companies do a much better job at maintaining relationships with customers and not such a great job maintaining meaningful relationships with their own employees.  Yet both are critically important.

We forget sometimes that every employee is a marketer, that every employee speaks for the company, that your own employees represent your first line of positive (or negative) word-of-mouth public relations.  This is especially true for employees who are in regular contact with customers, but it is true for all employees.  Why?  Because you never know who that employee is going to talk to.  It could be a customer, competitor or reporter.

The challenge is, it is in your best interest to ensure all employees feel good about your products and services and know how to deliver positive messages.  The best way to do that is to ensure regular and meaningful contact with employees, similar to what you do (or should be doing) with your customers.  Teach them what to say about you, and make sure you live up to it.

What will you do to ensure you have regular meaningful contact with employees?

Do you take full responsibility for all parts of the process, including the tasks that are completed by other people?

 Long-term relationships and customer loyalty are directly related to personal accountability.  We give greater trust to people who take ownership and demonstrate personal accountability.  Trust, as we’ve discovered, is a key element of excellence in customer relationships.  And without good relationships, you cannot achieve maximum results.  The challenge is, you need to take ownership of each step along that path. 

It’s really easy to say, “it’s not my job,” and to assume your job ends with the sale.  But it doesn’t.  The customer doesn’t see the handoff or organizational boundaries or the distinctions between sales, fulfillment and service.  You are the first person the customer comes into contact with and builds a relationship with.  When you take responsibility and show yourself as personally accountable, you separate yourself from the competition, and help to solidify a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship. 

How can you demonstrate 100% accountability?

Do you heed your promises to the customer, even the unspoken ones?

Maintaining the relationship means maintaining credibility and trust. Maintaining credibility and trust means delivering on your promises. It means you do what you said you were going to do. To those of us who are continually in STEP-UP mode, this is second nature. However, to many good performers it is one of the things that keeps them from moving from good to great.

There are two primary reasons why we either don’t deliver on our promises, or why our customers don’t think we deliver on our promises. Pay close attention here, as this distinction is of staggering importance.

First. We get into trouble by assuming.  We assume we know what’s best for the client. We assume we’re all on the same page. For example, we assume that because we are comfortable with sliding schedules, that the customer is, too.

Let me illustrate. Think about a situation where you promised the customer you would deliver on Thursday, but you got busy and the delivery time slipped into Friday. You decide that the difference between Thursday afternoon and Friday morning isn’t that big of a deal. But guess what? It’s not how you see it that matters – it’s how the customer sees it that determines your credibility. For many customers – especially the Type A, highly driven kind – 5 PM on Thursday means 5 PM on Thursday. 9 AM on Friday morning means you did not deliver on your promise.

Second. We get into trouble by communicating poorly. We thought we agreed to X, when in fact, they heard X and something else. We endanger our ability to deliver on our promises because we aren’t straight, clear and definitive on what those promises are. So, an important step in delivering on your promises is to be straight, clear and definitive about what you promised. Understand there may be differences between what you thought you promised and what the customer thought you promised, or what he expects from you. You serve both interests by taking the time to ensure you’re both on the same page, and that it’s the right page for the customer.

How will you ensure you understand and make good on your promises, even the unspoken ones?

How simple (or complicated) is the process of becoming a customer? 

Too often we make if difficult for people to do business with us. We get people to “Yes” then lose them in the “next steps.”  

Several years ago we worked with a client who was good at getting people to say Yes, but lousy at keeping them after that.  His firm had a 24-step “becoming a client” process.  That’s right 24 steps!  In order to become a client, you had to go here, do this, then this, fill out this form, send it here, bring in this information, talk to this person, and so on through 24 steps.  Is it any wonder that half of his potential clients gave up before reaching the end?  I know I’d be thinking, “if it’s this bad before I become a client, what’s it going to be like once I’m in and need service?  What hoops will I need to jump through to get help?” 

Making it easy to do business with you is a key element of results excellence and one that is far too often overlooked.  Take a lesson from Internet retailers.  Think about the ones who make it easy and pleasurable to buy from them. They take great pains to minimize the number of steps and clicks.  They provide just the right amount of information and guidance to make the experience rewarding.  Not only do these retailers get the initial sale, but their customers are far more likely to return and buy something else.  

Decide what you can do to make it easier for customers to do business with you.  Even if you can’t do much to change the process, you can at least communicate the specific next steps clearly and be there to guide them along the way. 

The challenge is, it’s all too easy if you’re in sales to think of this part of the process as not your job.  The truth is, it is your job.  The goal is results, and without adhering to this piece of the process, you put those results at risk.  The solution – step up and take charge of making it easy for your future customers to buy from you. 

What can you do to make it easier for customers to do business with you?

Do you help your clients self-discover your value?

 There’s an old axiom that is especially relevant here – “When you say it, they doubt it, but when they say it, they believe it.”  There are all sorts of reasons why a customer might question what you say, not the least of which is that you stand to gain.  If you can get your customers to come to the same conclusion, and actually say the same thing on their own, it carries twice as much convincing power. 

 Helping clients self-discover your value is an especially valuable tool and produces good results for both parties.  So, why is it so difficult?  Simple.  Most people in sales like to talk.  They are passionate about their product or services and are eager to talk about them.

 We forget that selling is much easier when you let the customer come to their own conclusions, in their own way, and on their own schedule.  No one likes to be sold, but everyone likes to buy. 

 Becoming a guide for self-discovery is probably a different approach from what you’ve been taught to do (or are accustomed to doing), but like many of the tips in this guide, it gives you a powerful way to turbo charge results.

What can you do to help your client’s self-discover your value?

Do you really listen or are you concentrating on what you’re going to say next?

To really listen means you’re don’t focus on what you’re going to say next.  Rather, you focus on the customer and what he is saying.

This is valuable to the customer because it shows you are concerned about his well-being.  It’s also a vital part of building rapport and trust.

Listening is difficult for many of us because we are often so eager to tell the customer all about our wonderful product or service.  We want so much to make sure we say the right thing at the right time that we can’t help but work on our spiel in our heads while the other person is talking.  Often, it’s too late before we realize that we don’t have a clue what the other person just said.  He handed us the keys to the kingdom and we didn’t realize it.

Here are some guidelines for effective listening:

1. Quiet inner chatter.
2. Focus on the other person (focus outward on them rather than inward on you).
3. Let the other person talk without interrupting him.
4. Leave “space” in your conversation.  When the person comes to the end of a statement, pause for a few seconds before responding.
5. Listen for the story.
6. Probe for clarification.
7. Reflect.
8. Summarize.
9. Validate or reflect back their feelings and statements.
10. Refrain from giving advice or opinion or trying to solve the problem.

Identify 2 areas of focus for improving your listening skills.  How will you practice these new skills?

How do you get customer’s attention and make them think?

Making prospects and customers curious about your product or service is a highly effective way to engage them in a productive conversation. This is just simple logic based on recent research (2002): People who become engaged in curiosity-based thinking want to hear more about the solutions you provide, while those who are not engaged in such thinking won’t.

Curiosity is created when the customer recognizes he has a knowledge gap that could have unfortunate consequences for him. When the gap is manageable or marginal, the customer is more comfortable initiating action to close the gap. On the other hand, if the gap is too small, then the customer is unimpressed.

The question is, “How do you pique someone’s curiosity?” Simple. Ask him an intriguing question related to something personal, something he seeks to gain.

• Did you know that the bottles your entire industry uses could be causing cancer?
• Did you see the Wall Street Journal report on small business failures?
• Two questions: how many competitors do you believe you have? And, how much money would it take to buy them all out?
• What have you learned about franchise start-up costs?

The key is, make the knowledge gap moderate and relevant.

What strategies or techniques can you add to improve the curiosity factor?

In light of yesterday’s disaster in Haiti, let us pause to think of those effected by the earthquake. My heart and prayers go out to the victims of the quake, their families and those wonderful souls lending aid.