Are Your Sales Reps Emotionally Involved?

Emotionally Involved Sales Pros Win More Big Deals More Quickly. They Also Earn Repeat Business And Referrals.

Emotionally involved sales reps are better equipped to differentiate themselves. It starts when they invest time researching a business and its power base prior to making contact.  The knowledge gained enables a solid customer-centric conversation, which sets the stage for a prospect to ask how your product or service can provide the value and benefits they need.  This knowledge can be weaved into your proposal and price negotiations.

Emotional attachment continues after the sale and throughout the customer relationship cycle.  As customer ambassador, the sales rep ensures extraordinary support and listens to customer ideas for product/service enhancements, new products and services, and suggestions for improving your touch points and making it easier to do business with your company.

When sales reps have a lot invested, it is more difficult for them to give up. What are your chances of real success, if you can't get emotionally involved?

By John Bernardi

The Top 20% Ask For Customer Feedback

How Do You Receive Customer Feedback?

Why don't companies request feedback at each stage of their customer relationships?  Is it because they fear negative feedback and an inability to deal with it?

Why wouldn't a CEO want to understand how their company is performing at each touch point along with how their product or service lives up to its brand promise?

Without this knowledge, how can you expect to continually improve and generate the profit that you think you deserve?

If you measure repeat business and referrals as KPIs, but you are not achieving these goals, why aren't you asking for feedback?  In person quality reviews and online surveys are great tools for gaining insight and for building a raving fan base.

By John Bernardi

Marketing Dollars Better Spent On Customer Experience Management

Customer Experience Management

You Will Be Much More Successful When You Create A Great Experience At Each Touch Point

If actual experiences don't live up to your promise, what good is it for you to attract attention with any form of content marketing?  Instead, consider investing marketing dollars in your CEM culture rather than spending it on image promotion.

Rather than tooting your horn it's better to provide pleasant surprises at every touch point, especially if you can identify and differentiate each touch point visitor according to their needs, the value they bring to your company, and their stage in the buying process.  This will enable you to tailor an individual experience based on what you know about them.

Each stage of the buying cycle has make it or break it touch points.  For example, in the pre-purchase stage your blog, social networks, website and contact center will be key factors in determining if the prospect decides to invite you to discuss a solution to their problem or opportunity.  If they enter the purchase stage, your sales rep becomes very important along with store layout, packaging and ordering process.  Once they've become a customer, you want them to return and also to refer you to others. So, in the post-purchase stage, things like ease of use, customer service, newsletter tips and loyalty programs become key "stay in touch" points.

You'll need a process that is supported by the right marketing automation tools to make this happen.  Begin with content, layout, graphics and video that capture initial attention so that people will want to begin their customer experience journey. They will move to the next logical step in the buying process as long as each prior touch point experience is positive.

By John Bernardi

Is Your Fan Base Telling Compelling Stories About Your Company?

Hopefully, you have a large fan base that continuously injects high quality referrals into your sales funnel. Fans are very powerful influencers within their community. Recognize their differences and nurture each type accordingly.  Mavens know a lot about what's going on. Connectors know the key people.

Unlike your sales reps, fans don't have to invest any time learning about your company, so you need to be creative in how you train and motivate them. Drip marketing campaigns teach fans about your company in bite size lessons. Fun learning activities make it rewarding for fans to connect with your business.  Games enable fans to sample configurations and to test different uses before buying them.


Your fan base can be a key member of your marketing team because of its power to influence referrals from their trusting communities.

Comment on this post:

Do you track the # of leads you receive from your fan base?

By John Bernardi

Marketing Driven Sales Teams Build Customer Lifetime Value

Don't Ring The Bell After Closing A Sale

After a great effort to close a sale and adequately deliver their product or service, "lost opportunists" move on to the next sale without considering the opportunity presented by the customer that they just served.  Customers who are disappointed by some small thing that doesn't match their expectations may or may not return and probably won't volunteer their reason. When expectations are met, but there is no effort to exceed them, a customer may or may not return, and probably won't refer their colleagues, friends and family. 

Companies that have a consistent process to understand the degree to which a customer is nearing raving fan status are able to adjust accordingly.

Under promise and over deliver can be as simple as alerting the customer when something isn't going to happen as planned.  When everything is on track as promised, how can you exceed expectations?

Ring The Bell After A Repeat Sale Or Referral