What do your customers have to do… … to get your attention?

What was that rather large lady doing, standing three paces back from the counter in the middle of the BP shop saying “I’d like to speak to the Manager please” over and over in quite a loud voice?  A couple of other customers gave her funny looks, one bloke rolled his eyes, but she didn’t seem to care that she was making a spectacle of herself.  It turns out that she’d been overcharged $2 for a car wash. She hadn’t noticed the anomaly when she was served, but spotted it while she was sitting in the middle of the car wash.

She went back to the counter, waited patiently for over five minutes until the cashier who originally served her had finished an obviously private phone call and then explained, in a nice, non-confrontational way, what had happened. The cashier wasn’t interested in refunding her the $2 because she’d already been through the car wash. The lady stuck to her guns and after it became obvious that the matter was not closed, the cashier leaned forward and very quietly said, “OK, I’ll give you the f***ing $2. It will be worth it to get you out of the shop, you f***ing fat bitch.”  Probably not an optimal example of conflict resolution.

What do your customers have to do to get your attention? 

How easy do you make it for them to complain? 

There’s a school of thought out there that if you can make it difficult enough for them to lodge a complaint, customers will give up and go away. It may be true that they go away, but don’t think for one second that they give up. Oh no! They tell their friends and colleagues and if the infringement is bad enough, you not only lose the business of the original disgruntled customer, but also reap the fallout from their circle of acquaintances who now also won’t buy from you.

I have a slightly different way of looking at things. I believe that customers who complain are worth their weight in gold. In voicing their complaint a number of things happen that wouldn’t have happened if they’d just shut up and gone away.

1.)     Firstly, we find out that there is a problem. This is helpful because for every one customer who complains, you can bet that there are many others who are dissatisfied and don’t complain. So now that we know about it, we can do something about it.

2.)    Secondly, we have the opportunity to make it right for the complaining customer. If we do a good job fixing their problem, they’ll become our advocate. They’ll tell all their friends about how good we are at sorting things out for them. The story is no longer about their problem, it’s about how happy they are with the solution. 

3.)    Thirdly, we gain a loyal customer. We fixed their problem, therefore they’ve learned that we’re trustworthy and because we’re trustworthy, they’ll do business with us again and again. They don’t have to risk going elsewhere because they know if they ever have another problem, we’ll fix it.

So it’s worthwhile considering ways to encourage complaints from your customers, but don’t forget to train yourself and your staff in resolving them, if only to avoid having fat ladies camping out in the middle of your premises, loudly and firmly demanding to speak to the manager. 

The Old Razzle Dazzle

You’ve spent a fortune on sales courses that leave you burning with enthusiasm and raring to sell, sell, sell, but in the final analysis, you don’t seem able to add anything to your bottom line. Why? You put in all the effort. You do everything they tell you to, yet your results just don’t match the hype. If anything, your sales results have gotten worse!

It could be a mismatch in core values and you get that from trying to mix selling cultures that just don’t fit. I remember when I was a little girl and had my first sleepover at a friend’s house. I was amazed at how differently her family operated than mine. I had thought everyone was the same, that her parents would be just like my parents; that their family rituals and rules would be just the same as mine. They were nothing like my family. They talked with their mouths full. They put their elbows on the table as they ate. They hugged each other a lot. All vastly different from how things ran at my house.

The same can be said for sales. Many sales training courses in Australia and New Zealand have their basis in American systems. Some of their stuff is very powerful and works extremely well….when you’re selling to Americans. But try using this stuff on Kiwis and Aussies and it’s a huge clash of values. We don’t think like Americans, in fact, we're deeply suspicious of the American tendency to amp things up and use a lot of hyperbole.

Try selling to an Aussie or a Kiwi using these techniques and they’ll first wonder what drugs you’re on and then they’ll run a mile. They simply don’t trust this style of selling and hate the feeling of being “sold” to.  They don’t trust in the sincerity of the salesperson when they use overblown sales techniques and they show their displeasure and mistrust by not buying from you.

Keep looking for sales courses, by all means, but take from them only the bits that fit with your own culture of selling.  It’s great to inject yourself with a hefty dose of enthusiasm, just be careful how you apply it in your own selling environment. By keeping your customers in mind and always relating your sales pitch back to their needs, you really can’t go wrong.

Fear of Selling

People fear what they don’t understand and there’s a lot to understand about selling. Let's start with how you view the profession of sales. Do you even think of it as a profession at all? The term ‘profession’ implies a set of rules and boundaries concerning conduct. Does this apply to the salespeople you know? When you think of salespeople, do you automatically think of disinterested shop assistants and pushy reps? What about the oily car salesman, the money-hungry realtor, the relentless multi-level marketer? Yes? Then it’s no surprise that you have a fear of selling, because why on earth would a switched-on new age person like you want to be like these people?

If everything you stand for is in direct opposition to what these types of people represent, how can you reconcile selling anything to anyone? Surely if you do the same things as these people do, day after day, you’ll wind up just like them, people you detest? Your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. What you think becomes your reality, so if you’re thinking along these lines, you have a pretty strong motivation to avoid selling, don’t you think?

Overcome Fear with Knowledge

A healthy dose of fear could be a good thing if it prompts you to consider the reasons for it and then take action. The reason for your fear in this instance is that you don’t know enough about sales to avoid the pitfalls of becoming a product peddler, a quote-giver, an order taker; those types of salespeople we all dislike. But these are not your only choices.

Add “Problem Solver” and “Friend in the Business” into the mix and suddenly the outlook brightens. These are people who believe that your needs are paramount; who know how to determine exactly what those needs are, even if you’re a little hazy on the details and who, on principle, wouldn’t sell you something that didn’t fit your needs. They love what they do and it shows. They’re salespeople you go out of your way to buy from, because they’ve made such a positive impact on you in the past. There would be no shame at all in emulating them, so how do you overcome your fear enough to get to be like them? Start by learning what they learn.

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

Recognise that “You don’t know what you don’t know” and find some means of finding out just what it is about sales that you don’t know. Here are just a few of them;

• Discover your optimal learning style and acquire training which appeals to that style, for example, if you do your best learning from reading, do your homework, find out who has the best books on the topic and read them.

• Find a mentor, someone you admire for their skilfulness in sales and ask them for their help.

• Practise, practise, practise.

• Adjust your attitude.

• View the positive qualities of professional salespeople as worthy of emulation.

As a small business person, to be cost effective and competitive you often need to wear many different hats; the roles of “boss”, “marketing manager”, “bookkeeper”, “production manager”, to mention a few. When you start out in your own business, you may not necessarily know all there is to know about bookkeeping for example, but you talk to people, ask around, study and practice and eventually you gain proficiency. With one notable exception, the same can be said for sales. There are many different skills involved in selling and you need to become proficient in all of them in order to successfully sell your product or service. And that one exception?

Selling is pivotal. If you don’t get good at bookkeeping or management or marketing, things could get a bit messy, but it’s not fatal. If you don’t get good at selling, you have no business. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. So you have a vested interest in learning as much about sales as you can.

“Natural” Salespeople

On the other end of the spectrum are those people who eschew any need to learn more about sales because they’re “natural” salespeople. I’m certain such people exist, just as there are natural scientists, natural musicians and natural linguists, but someone still had to teach them what a Bunsen burner was, how to hold a guitar, how to accurately translate Chekhov. Sure, they have natural or innate talent, but all the talent in the world is meaningless unless you have the skills to go with it. The wonderful thing about sales skills is that with time, application and practice, anyone can learn them.