Who is YOUR Customer?

Perception is Reality…

How do Your Customers Really See You?

To keep both our internal (employees) and external customers happy we need to have a thorough understanding of their likes and dislikes. To make sure you are keeping them happy and delivering the best possible service ask yourself, your staff and above all your customers the following questions;

How well do we deliver what we promise?

How often do we do things right the first time?

How often do we do things right on time?

How quickly do we respond to your requests for service?

How accessible are we when you need to contact us?

How helpful and polite are we?

How well do we speak your language?

How hard do you think we work at keeping you a satisfied client?

How much confidence do you have in our products or services?

How well do we understand and try to meet your special needs and requests?

Overall, how would you rate the appearance of our facilities, products and people?

Overall, how would you rate the quality of our service?

Overall, how would you rate the quality of our service compared to our competitors?

How willing would you be to recommend us?

How willing would you be to buy from us again?

Marketing and Leadership

Winners Do What Losers Won’t

• Successful people have formed the habit of doing hard to do things.
• Things that make them uncomfortable.
• They do uncomfortable things anyway.
• This is the biggest truth about success.

What’s marketing? Marketing is a series of planned, interrelated activities that when done right: 1) Identifies best potential buyers of your products and services – and aligns what you sell with their needs/wants. 2) Devises ways to attract the interest of these targeted best potential buyers to your business. 3) Presents irresistible offers to best potential buyers in the most cost effective and compelling ways possible.

A key reason why some business people are fabulously successful – seemingly without effort – is because they have Better Marketing Behavior.

So marketing is what you do to get people to give you money. It’s all the activities, communications, and demonstrations you can successfully strung together to produce a highly desirable event near the end called a sale. Leadership and communication are parts of marketing. What else? How about cajoling, coercion, and manipulation, are they part of marketing? Yes they are. Is building trust part of marketing? Of course, people buy from those they learn to trust. Is marketing lying? Can be, yes indeed, it can. But those who lie when marketing will not long survive, a sale of two perhaps but in the long run the liars will lose big time. Good marketing is not lying. It is telling the truth attractively.

There are two skills you must master for your marketing to work right. The two skills are leadership and communication.

What’s leadership? It’s getting people to do things they’re afraid to do, or don’t know about, or don’t understand, or never thought of, or don’t think can be done, or things that someone might think others can do them but not them personally, or things that make them feel uncomfortable, or things that people just don’t want to do at all. If you can successfully lead people you’re a powerful person. And you can lead people, because leadership is a skill that can be taught and learned. You can develop the ability to get people to support your ideas and to go along with what you want. You can use this ability to get others to do your bidding, to support you, to give you their money, their energy, their resources, their heart and soul, to put themselves on the line for you, and to rally around you in all ways that they can and to do so wholeheartedly, with genuine enthusiasm, as if whatever you wanted from them was indeed their own idea, as if the actions and belief systems you get them to embrace were their own. That’s leadership.

What’s communication? It’s talking; it’s also writing, using images, lots of non-verbal communication too but for our purposes, it’s mostly talking. Communication is talking with the intent of instructing, supporting, sharing, understanding, imparting values, entertaining, influencing, and helping people make decisions that are good for them and good for you too.

WHAT GOES WRONG?

• No written plan,
• No research in the plan,
• No test of strategy,
• Plan not implemented, or only sporadically,
• Poor organization, can’t be productive when we’re not organized,
• Lousy follow up, no tracking,
• Can’t close the sale, make the deal.

MARKETING BEST PRACTICE “Know Your Audience”

• Know what they need and want,
• Know what they are willing to pay for,
• Know where they are,
• Know what will attract their interest,
• Know how to cost effectively reach them,
• Know how to close them.

DEVELOP AN IRRESISTIBLE OFFER

• Specifically what are you offering that satisfies the highest needs/wants of your audience? What’s your offer?
• How will you present your offer? What will you say?

DON’T BE PASSIVE

• If you sit and wait for opportunities to come to you, you’ll wind up taking whatever comes along, even work you may not like much, from people you may not like much either.
• Your pipeline might full up, but will you be happy? Probably not.

IF YOU’RE PROACTIVE…

• If you seek out the exact kind of buyers you want, and proactively go get them, you’ll fill your pipeline with rewarding work.
• You’ll like your new customers.
• You’ll like your life better!

Courtesy Richard Borough

Sales Dad….Introduction

Everyone said, “You need to write a book”.

The thought that “the book just wrote itself” is a lot of malarkey.

I’m finding there’s a whole lot of prep time, content development, procrastination, and research that goes into writing a book.

I know I have never procrastinated more in my life…

I think the best thing I can do is just to go ahead and get started.

What I found in developing the material for this book is that my life as a father and an advertising salesman truly intersect.

All the teaching I’ve had on marketing, leadership, mediation, goal development, and more, will have an impact on my parenting.

That is to say that you could replace the words “parenting” or “effective fathering” over much of what we do in sales and management training and it would work in terms of them being being parallel worlds.

The tools are all the same: effective communication, relationship building, compelling goal-setting and attainment, compassionate leadership, time management, organization, and effective execution.

Business, selling, and management truly do parallel effective parenting.

The measurements and outcomes are different but the tools are very similar:

An effective leader, whether at home or work, truly does leave a legacy and a heritage.

This leader creates a positive culture which permeates that home, business, or venue.

It’s doing this with intentionality, and knowing what you want going in, that makes the difference between being a lousy leader or parent, versus an effective one.

We have a long way to go, and it’s my hope that this book will give you the tools to move the needle, to make the change, and to make a difference in your world, whether at home or at work.

At the end of the day it’s up to you as to what you’ll take action on.

My father used to say”It takes money to buy whiskey…”

I never knew what that meant until a few years ago. It has to do with being a person of action who takes the initiative and is willing to  pay the price for what he really wants.

My hope is that you will be that person who perseveres, who is courageous, and who won’t stop until the dream is fulfilled.

Here’s to the dream of leaving a positive legacy…

Scott Hammond

McKinleyville California

Easter Sunday

March 23, 2008

12 Essential Elements for a Done Business

Master these 12 elements/behaviors, and you will have done business…

1. Mission-Defining purpose and legacy.
2. Vision-Educating, sharing philosophy, pointing in the direction.
3. Marketing-Planning benefits value to emphasize and showcase.
4. Sales-Advertising and taking dynamic action with your marketing plan.
5. Operations-Doing the work, project management and execution.
6. Customer Service-earning trust, respect, and loyalty.
7. Score keeping- Systemization with accountability and measurement.
8. Communication-Expressing ideas and conclusions effectively.
9. Finance-Managing the money, budgeting, allocating resources.
10. Human Resources-Nurturing your primary asset…people.
11. Legal-Complying, staying within the rules and regulations.
12. Future Planning-Forecasting trends, preparing for what might come next.

Courtesy of my friend and Mentor Dr. Richard Borough (Mastermind Alliance)