WHERE ARE YOU BEING SEEN?

Recently a brand new place to eat, primarily for breakfast and lunch, opened up where we live, Port Coquitlam, BC. Today, my wife and I decided to visit for lunch.

The place is called Jimmy’s Lunchbox and they have been opened for a couple of months in downtown Port Coquitlam. There was a lineup for tables. Not that unusual as it was a Sunday afternoon. They had advised us the wait would be a minimum of 30-minutes.

We could have certainly gone somewhere else for lunch as there are dozens of restaurants nearby as we are a suburb of Vancouver with the borders of the different communities really obscured in this mega area. However, we decided to stay and wait.

Saw a few people come, informed of the wait by staff and then leave not waiting to support a local business.

BEING DUMB IS THE BEST TOOL IN YOUR TOOLBOX

The particular process I teach is one called DUMB. The tag line for this process is: “The DUMBER you are the more successful you will be.”

As mentioned in previous blogs, the sales system was actually established back in 1897 by James Patterson the CEO of The National Cash Register Corporation. Since then many processes have come along to work with the system with varying degrees of success.

DUMB is an acronym standing for; Different, Unique, Memorable and Believable.

THE POWER HAS SHIFTED

THE SHIFTThere have been so many changes in the sales world in the past 10-15 years. Technology has certainly played a major part in it. However, the biggest and most recent change is the interaction between seller and buyer.

In his book, ‘To Sell Is Human:’ Daniel H. Pink talks about how the shift in information and the easy access to it has taken the simple transaction of caveat emptor to caveat venditor. In other words, we have gone from buyer beware to seller beware. It is the foolish and unknowledgeable seller that now must beware in how he not only conducts business but how he treats his customers and prospects.

BE RIGHT WITH YOU!

be right with youA couple of weeks ago, during one of the classes of The Action Suite, one of my clients went off on a rant about something which happened to her a week or so earlier. What happened to her has been happing more and more today and with competition, be it from other businesses, or the one competitor which effects everyone, the internet; have businesses forgotten what ‘customer service’ is?

She had walked into a Starbucks and was the only person in line with three people working behind the counter. No one acknowledged her. No one addressed her even with a: “I will be with you in just a second.” One made direct eye contact with her and did not even nod to acknowledge her presence. Finally, many minutes later, someone came to help her. She let her feelings be known in no uncertain terms and left the store without purchasing anything.

WHAT IS YOUR HURRY?

not hurry

Does anyone remember the days when you walked into a prospects/client’s office and simply stated what you had, what it did, how it did it, why they needed it and when did they want it? I do. I also know if you are doing this, you may not be getting the results you want, or need.

Those days are long gone and I for one am so happy they are. There was no ‘getting to know the prospect’ time. All we wanted to do was walk in, tell them all about the newest thing and get out with an order if we could. The sad part was, we walked out more often without the order than with. Then, things started to change and we began the ‘bonding and rapport’ process.

It was not a miraculous concept, it simply meant we started to get to know our clientele better. We slowed the process down. The end results were more sales orders than before.

THE NEXT QUESTION

right question“We are currently having issues with our supplier on…” You think: “Great! I now have something in which to make us look better than the competition.” You think this because you have yet to achieve the art of the next question.

Questions form the solid base to any sales calls. This should now be entrenched in everyone’s mind. The question then becomes, what kind of questions should you be asking?

I wish I could give you a list of questions to ask, but I cannot. Every situation is different, every prospect/client is also different and every industry is unique in its own right. However, this does not mean you should not have questions ready to ask.