Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Last Thursday, I was watching Whose Line Is It Anyway?, as Wayne Brady invented a song, on the spot, like no one else can. Drew Carey would throw out a musical style, the audience would yell out topics, and Wayne would instantly compose and sing a song, with perfect rhymes, double entendres, wit and humor.
That got me thinking a lot about improvisation, which has been a big part of my life since I started playing guitar at age 12. Improvisation became a theme a few more times throughout the weekend, inspiring this week’s newsletter, Improvise your success.
Improvise your success connects, chimpanzees, bonobos, The Second City, jazz and my second book together to create this message: Improvise!
There is a place in business for policy and programming, and there are many places for improvising. So what do you think? Is improv important to your business success?
Newsletter link: Improvise your success
Posted in Conversation, Creativity, We relationships | 2 Comments »
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Sales and marketing are not about telling stories. Sales and marketing are about helping your customer create a story, in his mind, in which you figure as a prominent, clear, vibrant character. If your customer tells himself a meaningful, motivating story that includes you, he will be much more likely to get more involved with you, and take actions that improve your business results.
Stop telling stories about yourself. Instead, figure out how to make yourself part of your customer’s story.
Posted in Customer Encounters, Marketing | 1 Comment »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Yesterday, I ran into a 24-year old young man who is the son of close family friends. I’ve known “Jake” since he was a little kid, so I’ve seen for years that he has a magnetic, charismatic personality, and has always been able to attract friends.
About a year ago Jake started working for a local firm selling life insurance and investments – a very difficult career for anyone to start at a young age, with its long sales cycles and the need to get people to trust you with their money. He and I work out at the same club, so I see him on a regular basis and have a chance to hear updates on his progress. Some days I’d see him, elated, after a promising meeting with a prospect. Sometimes he was discouraged he wasn’t closing more sales yet.
My comments to him: You have started a career path where long-term relationships create riches. If you have enough great meetings with prospects now, you will start to build relationships with some of them. When you are 40, some of the relationships you start this month may be paying your mortgage. Meetings you have next month will start relationships that will help send your kids to college. If anybody can make it in this business, you can. The only question: Can you wait?
In most businesses, customer relationships are your most valuable asset. Jake has chosen a business where this is especially true, with great rewards for those who can create and nurture long-term relationships. But we’re all like Jake to an extent: Can we be patient and invest now, one relationship-building encounter at a time, in building those relationships that will help us prosper in the future?
Certainly, Jake could use his exceptional relationship-building skills for more short-term financial gains. He could be a waiter in a fine-dining restaurant, creating 45-minute relationships that, I’m sure, would earn him the largest tips of all the servers. But, beyond the few repeat customers who ask for him, these relationships wouldn’t create lasting value for Jake. If his insurance job is like that of a christmas tree farmer, being a waiter would be more like that of a migrant worker, earning wages for today but starting over tomorrow.
I’m rooting for Jake, and for his firm. If he and they can be patient, all will benefit, including Jake’s future clients, since We relationships create strong benefits for both buyers and sellers.
It’s easy to look at Jake’s situation and think, “I’m glad that’s not me. I could never sell insurance.” And yes, specifically, I could never sell insurance. I’d go nuts. But Jake’s job really isn’t selling insurance. It’s building relationships that differentiate him from other providers in the minds of his clients. And when we recognize that we again remind ourselves that Jake’s challenge is our challenge: Do we want to be the migrant worker or the christmas tree farmer? Do we want to build our business around short-term transactions that produce their yields now, or do we want to invest in a rich, bountiful future harvest?
Posted in We relationships | 1 Comment »
Sunday, November 15th, 2009
“Attract and retain customers”
I hear this phrase all the time, as if it were an indivisible, and comprehensive, unit. It assumes that once you acquire a customer the only thing left is to retain that customer.
A newsletter I wrote last year, The Apple Farmer, shows why retention is rarely ever enough. When asked what percent of their customers are giving them all of the business they reasonably could, most companies report a very low number to me. They haven’t lost the customers, but they surely haven’t developed all they can from the relationships.
So be cautious of strategies designed to “retain” customers. These strategies may succeed, and, if they do, you may miss the chance to go beyond the success of retention and develop more profitable, mutually-beneficial, continually-developing We relationships.
Posted in We relationships | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
In our current marketplace, trust is not enough to win you customers. You have many trustworthy competitors.
However, the slightest chink in your “trust-armour” can lose you customers. Here’s an example:
I have been a loyal customer of Orbitz for a number of years, creating a near-reflexive habit of going to orbitz.com when I need to book travel. Each time I use Orbitz I am offered the chance to click a box and purchase travel insurance, which I never do.
I noticed three travel insurance charges on my credit card bill, related to three international reservations I had booked. When I called Orbitz they said it was too late to remove these charges since the travel dates had passed. “But I never selected travel insurance” did not seem to be a plausible objection to them.
With the agent on the phone I walked through a couple of “mock” reservations, and learned that for international reservations travel insurance is pre-selected, and you need to opt-out if you don’t want it.
What a bait and switch. For years I’ve been given the choice on Orbitz whether I want travel insurance, and then they sneak it in when I book international tickets. My brand impression of Orbitz changed immeditately. It went from “hassle-free/always-works/I-can-count-on-them” to “I better keep my eyes open from now on because they will try to take money from me when I am not looking.” We went from a We relationship to a definite Us & Them relationship.
Don’t ever be tempted to sneak something by your valuable customers. For about $100 Orbitz lost most of the trust I had in them. Making money in this way is a great example of “bad profits.”
Posted in We relationships | 7 Comments »
Monday, September 21st, 2009
In every customer interaction, there are only three things that can happen:
- Your relationship gets better
- Your relationship stays the same
- Your relationship gets worse
Scenario #1 is an “encounter.” Scenarios #2 & #3 are “transactions.”
As you interact with people this week, in the course of doing your work, notice this at the end of each interaction: Is my relationship with this person better now than it was at the start of the interaction? Have we created a relationship-building encounter?
Here are a few places you can learn more about the differences between encounters and transactions:
- Chapter 2 in my book, We: The Ideal Customer Relationship.
- My free ebook, Encounters, which can be downloaded on the right side of this page.
- This newsletter, The Encounter Habit.
- And numerous blog posts on this site.
But, for this week, focus on encounter awareness. Notice whether you are creating encounters or transactions.
Then, work on creating more encounters. Even if you are a master of business relationship-building, you have room for improvement. Everyone does. Every customer interaction is not only an opportunity to build a relationship, it is an opportunity to practice the skill of encounter, one of the most valuable business skills you can have.
Posted in Customer Encounters | 4 Comments »
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Conversation. Genuine Dialogue.
Relationship-building encounters can’t happen without it.
Make this a week of awareness about conversation. During every interaction – with customers, vendors, partners, colleagues, bosses, direct reports, etc. – keep “The Conversationometer” alive in your mind:
- Are you and the other person engaged, at each moment, in true, genuine dialogue, or is one (or both) of you practicing “monologue disguised as dialogue?”
- How fluid is the conversation? What can you do to make it more fluid?
- How well are both of you listening?
- How relevant are your responses to each other? Are each of your answers and comments based on what came before in the conversation, or on a “pre-approved agenda” you wanted to force into the conversation?
Monologue does not move relationships forward. Conversation is critical.
Make this a week of conversation.
Posted in Conversation | 3 Comments »
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
This quote, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, captures why many businesses are missing the marketing potential of social media. Similar to the early days of Internet marketing in the mid-90’s, these businesses are focused on the technology and software (the “needles”), and not on the underlying reasons the needles move. A focus on technology and software applications leads many business people to see social media as just another channel of mass media, through which their mass marketing messages can travel. This is what causes businesses to claim “We’re on Facebook!” when their social media marketing is just seen as another way to “get the word out.” (See this earlier post I wrote on tompeters.com, along with the rich comments from the tompeters.com community.)
Emerson’s quotation is actually a perfect metaphor for social media, since the “magnetism” that we should focus on is found in the social connections and relationships that you can nurture and facilitate with social media.
It’s easier to believe in magnetism, and not in needles, if you focus on a few key points that differentiate social media from mass marketing:
• Mass marketing is one-to-many. Social media is about facilitating community.
• Mass marketing is about “getting the word out.” Social media is about nurturing conversations.
• Mass marketing is about creating a transaction. Social media is about strengthening connections.
Community, conversation and connections. This is the magnetism.
Posted in Marketing | 3 Comments »
Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Many hours in airplanes, the beautiful Indian Ocean, and a chance to practice “now.” One of the things I really like about traveling to far-away time zones is the chance to practice some life and business fundamentals that contribute directly to business success.
Here’s a short video I shot yesterday:
I’m carrying on with my theme of the last week, focusing on really specific things we can all do to improve our business relationships and relationship-building encounters, moment by moment. Some of the biggest obstacles to being effective with business relationships are the zillions of distractions that keep up from being present as we engage with others. Practice “now.”
Posted in Customer Encounters, Invent Your Future | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
Today’s newsletter is called “The Encounter Habit.” Here’s the rub: Relationship-building encounters are the most important products you produce, every day. At any moment during a customer interaction, monitor how well things are going, and be alert and ready to improve the encounter. It can be done!
Pay attention! Be alert! At any point in time, you can turn a customer interaction into a relationship-building encounter, and avoid having it devolve into a relationship-eroding transaction.
I’ve just landed at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris, from where I will fly to Mauritius later today, landing early tomorrow morning. Continuing my theme from my “Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional” post at the beginning of this 17-day odyssey, I successfully managed not to let United Airlines’ silliness upset my travel peace of mind, even during the O’Hare check-in process that required two lines, one for checking in and one for checking passports. (Could have been the “Not” example in an Industrial Engineering 101 class. )
I know it’s strange, but I really like these transition days in Europe … somewhat serene from too little sleep, ready for a new adventure. Check out my “Warsaw Walking Yoga with Joni Mitchell” video blog from last summer. Regrettably, I don’t have enough time before my next flight to go into Paris for a few hours, so I’ll have to find something interesting in the airport. Hey, I might even have a chance to practice the Encounter Habit.
(Post update 8:30AM Mauritius Time, Wednesday, 11:30PM Chicago time, Tuesday: Just arrived in Mauritius. Beautiful suite at Le Meridien’s resort, overlooking the Indian Ocean on the north shore of the island. After a zillion hours on airplanes I should sleep, but I need to go outside. Finally got to meet my friend, client and host, Kiran Dinaran of Multievents, in person, after months of Skype and email. Looking forward to a great couple of days here.)
Posted in Customer Encounters | 9 Comments »
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