Fearful Of Interviewing Customers After Key Engagements?

Quality Reviews

Identify Gaps After Important Customer Projects

• Customer Experience
• Products and Services
• Attitudes and Behaviors
• Easy To Do Business With
• Customer Facing Processes
• Touch Points
• Channels
• Complementary Partners
• Communications

Prove Total Customer Satisfaction by gaining approval for logical next steps, referrals, new ideas, and customer participation in authoring success stories.

Discover Uncontrollable Business Risks: Competition, technology, economic, social, regulatory.

Interview The Customer, Partners And Team

Your interviewer must be perceptive about things that are difficult or unclear so that you can gain a deep understanding and insight about your business.

Understand Your Company's Essence

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By John Bernardi

Quality Reviews Retain Customers and Earn Referrals

Quality Reviews Prove Your Commitment To Total Client Satisfaction

Don't fear what you might learn about your company. It will set the stage for growth.

After important projects or sales, a quality review debriefing between you and your client verifies that desired results were achieved and discovers gaps requiring resolution. It recognizes those that contributed valiantly.  It reveals your company's weaknesses that need to be addressed along with strengths that can be leveraged en route to being selected for the next opportunity. It gives the client confidence to refer you to others who have a similar challenge.

Business Relationships

There Will Always Be Someone Who Wants To Eat Your Lunch

The only way to create and then strengthen interpersonal business relationships is to help each contact achieve goals, minimize risk, enjoy what they're doing, eliminate pain, etc.

All the personal stuff is fluff [golf, football tickets, lunch, etc.] that will make a difference only if job #1 is accomplished.

First, get to know their company and industry before attempting to gain personal credibility with them. 

Then, make sure they know if you have a strong business relationship with others that they admire in their own organization.  It lessens their risk in partnering with you because they don't have to be the first.

Continually add value just to maintain your relationship because someone else that they've discovered on their own in this new world of self-service marketing has come along without your knowing it.

Closers Earn Face Time

Here's Another Way That Top Closers Earn Face Time

Yes, being referred by a trusted lead source and managing a quality customer portfolio are tried and true weapons for finding new prospects and quickly and efficiently converting them to close-mode sales opportunities. But online tools can also be a formidable weapon in your business development arsenal if used wisely.

Social networks, email marketing and other online tools are great BizD resources for preliminary research, staying in touch and featuring your best ideas to get yourself noticed - but don't allow them to trap you into thinking that they are closing tools.

Recruit them to be your point guard who sets up the plays so that you can score easy buckets at trade shows, sales interviews, etc.

Just like the skilled marketing person who blends eye catching layout with content, let your online efforts capture attention and help you earn the right to present content in person after which the prospect says, "I'm glad I made time for that".

Why do my LinkedIn connections only appear when they have new connections?  I'd like to read more posts from them.

What Is The Role Of Sales Commissions In Your Company?

If I Were a Customer and You Were a Sales Rep

Here's How I'd Like You to be Paid

How do you feel when the person with whom you are dealing will earn a commission or win a trip when you buy from them?

• Does anyone other than the sales rep win?  Do you win? Does their company win?
  
• Do they understand your needs and interests?
• Will they traverse your buying cycle so that you can do things at your pace?
• Will they be concerned about your experience after the sale?
• How do you know what's behind their recommendation?  Is it truly your best interests, or an internal SPIF, or selling what's in stock, or inventory liquidation, etc.?  Do they need this sale in order to make quota?

I'd prefer to know that the sales rep is being compensated based on my level of satisfaction.  Companies need to take a fresh look at their sales compensation schemes.  They need to be designed so that when their company wins, the sales rep becomes eligible to win.

Likeability Vs. Desirability

Likeability and/or Desirability

Essential Traits for Being Selected

To me, likeability reveals DNA for building a strong network and bringing out the best in others, while desirability is earned by delivering a beneficial result, or providing advantage or pleasure.

What is the golden ratio of desirability [a] to likeability [b]?  Can desirable people thrive with a low likeability factor?  How brightly must their product or service shine as the obvious choice to buyers?  Are they artificially likeable for as long as they continue to help their customers look good based on the excellent results produced by their product or service?

Can likeable people survive for a longer period of time when their products or services aren't always the obvious choice?

How would you want your [a] and [b] to be rated by your customers, prospects and channel partners?

It's Not Micromanaging

Do Employees Say You're Micromanaging Them?

Ever had an employee whose inner child sets you on your heels when they say "you're micro managing me"?

Here's a basketball analogy that you can use to differentiate micromanaging from what you're really doing.

The Right Approach to Practice Optimizes Chances to Win

The best coach/manager leadership persona has vision to structure the team and design a style of play that integrates cohesive rhythm on offense with intensive continuity on defense by players who execute as a seamless unit through teamwork and communication.

The coaching staff avoids ambiguity by breaking down each play in order to transform goals into individual responsibilities and specific steps.  Multidimensional, skilled players fit this style of play each season.  They have strong fundamentals [shoot, pass, dribble, create floor balance, move the ball, move without the ball, exploit mismatches, know when to dish or shoot].

Professionals welcome the opportunity to participate in hours of film sessions listening to coaches and team mates candidly criticize their game and identify opportunities to improve their game.  Imagine if they viewed this as micromanaging?

Handwritten cards trump e-cards

I don't pay much attention to the growing number of holiday e-cards that I receive from companies or people that have me on their email list. This is an impersonal mass mailing by vendors that go through the motions by using a no effort approach to sending the same e-card to everyone.

However, I read every word in a personally written holiday card.

I consider other types of e-cards such as birthdays or customer anniversaries as nice to receive.  For these I know that their system differentiates me from all the rest of its list.