Well it's been a fun week hasn't it? Especially if you're one of those unlucky people "stranded" on holiday in Barbados. I mean I suppose I have a small degree of sympathy for you - maxing out your credit cards in expensive hotels is not fun but, on the other hand, just how bad is it to be stuck on holiday?
I want to talk this week about something that really bothered me in light of this international disaster. Now most people were pretty reasonable - nobody told us off for failing to deliver their merchandise if it was being flown in, and everyone has actually been quite good humoured about the whole thing.
The people that weren't however, were the people that played by the traditional rules of supply and demand. The guilty party in this case were the ferry and tunnel operators. With people in dire need of transportation, with their credits cards stretched to cover additional hotel charges and travel costs, the ferries and tunnels put their prices UP.
"Of course they did!" you cry, and from a traditional and commercial perspective, you'd be right. On the other hand, I think that what they did was wrong. For a start they are blatantly kicking a lot of people when they're down. Now I am a fan of capitalism - it's hard to be a salesman and not be - but it does strike me that when extraordinary things like this happen, that companies could stand to be a little bit more helpful and, dare I say it, charitable.
But let's put the tree hugging argument to one side for the moment and look at a different implication. Now a lot of people may well have never used the Eurotunnel or ferry service before. They may always fly somewhere, believing it to be the most efficient and pleasant way to travel.
Now is it possible - even just a little bit - that some people forced to travel on the Eurostar may have found themselves thinking "Hey, you know this really isn't all that bad. We really must do this again some time"? Sure it's possible, but how likely is it that this very same passenger would be thinking that when they are simultaneously spitting at the thought of having to pay extra just because some volcano in Iceland decided to kick off?
Exactly. The tunnels and ferries had the most fantastic opportunity to create a new base of customers. They could have converted hundreds of air travellers and all they had to do was.....nothing at all. They could react by laying on more trains - which they did, but if they just left their prices alone then nobody would have thought worse of them. Here's a wacky idea - what if they'd actually discounted their prices to help more people get home? Chances are they would have actually generated even more interest, actually enticing people to use them as opposed to feeling that they had no other choice.
The problem with an economy in downturn is that it forces short term thinking. Sales people ring up prospective clients and unless they're looking to order immediately, feel slightly less enthused and move on. The closer to the end of the month, the worse that gets too, and the disappointment just grows and grows until we find ourselves in a panic.
It's just not necessary, and it can be very costly too. So what if a client is not ready to order this week? As long as, when they're ready to order, they order from you, everybody wins. Of course you could phone them once a week to see how they're getting on, but are you really adding any value in doing so?
"Hi, I just wondered if you'd made a decision yet," yawn yawn yawn. No. You need to be adding some value, each and every time you call. How about sending them a video of someone using the product, or an article where their name came up and you thought it would be of interest.
Or the Zeuss of sales ideas - letting them know that you've thought of a product which would go really well with the thing they're thinking about and getting them to buy both!
A good piece of promotional merchandise can really help you here. Keeping your name and contact details in front of the prospect will help to reinforce your sales message - you're not pestering for a sale, more so you are providing a service, or helping them to solve a problem.
Salespeople bring negative connotations with them, yet problem solvers are our heroes.
So how do you know which piece of merchandise will work for you? Well you don't, but if you take the time to look at your own sales messages and all of the features and benefits of your own products, some ideas will become obvious. The good news is that you don't need to do any of that - you just need to get in touch with me and I'll do it all for you.
And did I mention that I would do it all for free?
So take a long term view. After all, you didn't get into business just to see how well you'd be doing in three or six months did you? If you want to make a quick buck, there are hundreds of ways to do it, and most of them require very little effort. If you want to grow a business for the long haul, relax - take your time and HELP your customers.
Right - who's up for a last minute flight to Iceland?
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Thursday 15 April 2010
How much do your customers know?
This week I received a text from a friend of mine telling me that one of the companies I work with had gone through a bit of a rebrand. Now in and of itself, this was not particularly interesting, which may explain why he texted it to me as opposed to just picking up the phone and giving me a call.
On a side note, I find texts to be very annoying things, especially when they start turning into whole conversations that would have been a whole lot quicker and less thumb destroying than simply talking. Seriously, texting is destroying our language - there are people out there who actually say LOL! You heard me - they don't physically laugh, they actually say LOL. And get this - why do people now say OMG? It takes the exact same amount of time to use the actual words. What's more, if someone doesn't know what OMG means, you then need to explain it to them, which would seem to make the whole abbreviation utterly redundant! So many morons - so few alibis.
Anyway, back to the point of this week's blog. I called the company in question because, as luck would have it, they happen to be a client of mine, and I asked them why it was that I was finding out this information through a rumour mill as opposed to some form of direct communication.
"Well you've opted out of our newsletter", was their reply. Fair enough, I did indeed opt out of the newsletter, but that's only because there's only so much junk my mailbox can receive before my computer becomes truly self aware and starts attacking the human race with offers of discounted double glazing and Viagra.
But therein lies the problem. Sometimes customers are interested in little bits of information from their suppliers - I mean it might not be all that often, but the occasional gentle nudge could go a long way to bringing about some new business. A customer who you haven't spoken with in three years may well be in the market for some sort of upgrade, but when was the last time you actually asked them if they were interested?
It all stems from what I talked about a little bit last week - a short term view. We want business NOW, and if someone tells us that they're not going to be in the market for another year, we tell them we'll call them in a year. Some of us will - MOST OF US WON'T.
What's worse, our competitors will call that customer in a year and then - and I suspect you know where I am going with this - BANG, we lose out to our competitors.
Just because someone has opted out of your newsletter does not mean that they are not interested in hearing from you. They're just not interested in hearing from you every 5 minutes. Face it, there are plenty of newsletters and mailers that I get from people with whom I have a good working relationship, but I don't read all of them. The truly important information will find its way to me, and I'm not talking about a sales mailer or some 5% off special offer which, let's be fair, is really neither special or that much of an offer.
No, I'm talking about the information that's actually going to make a difference to me should I choose to act upon it. Something that addresses a prior concern like "hey, you know you bought that software from us two years ago, well lots of customers said they wished it could do x, y and z and we're pleased to tell you that it now can."
See how powerful that was? They showed that they had listened to their customers and acted on the information. Well as I am a customer too, it's just possible that they may have addressed some of my issues too, so it would be stupid to not at least check it out wouldn't it?
Your existing customers will always be your very best resource - it's seven times harder to land a new customer than it is to cultivate an existing one (seriously, how exactly did they work that out? You know you read these statistics in all the sales training stuff and you blindly accept it as fact. I want to talk to the person that put that statistic together - does anyone have his details?)
In any given year, and at any given moment within that year, more than 50% of the people that you contact will not be in a position to buy. Does that mean you drop them from the database? Of course it doesn't. What it means is that you need to keep in front of them until they are in that position, whilst at the same time not being a pest. It's a fine line, but it's not difficult to walk it.
Of course, you could always send out the information in a much more creative way. Do you realise that there are thousands of promotional items which will fit very neatly into the very same envelope that you're using to send out a newsletter? If you're spending your days stuffing envelopes, you really should be stuffing them with something that's more likely to yield a response.
As for email marketing, well I've posted about that before - it needs to form part of your marketing plan, but it must not account for all of it. Junk email filters are commonplace and I use them across all of my email accounts. What shocks me is that, when I last checked, 94% of all emails sent to my home account in one month was junk. That is an astonishing figure, but just look at what it is doing to the email habits of the recipients - unless we recognise the name of the sender, we may well be skipping over information that would otherwise be useful to us.
We can all do so much better than that, and I want to help, because until that check from the Nigerian Lottery clears, I am going to need to keep working.
Have a good week.
On a side note, I find texts to be very annoying things, especially when they start turning into whole conversations that would have been a whole lot quicker and less thumb destroying than simply talking. Seriously, texting is destroying our language - there are people out there who actually say LOL! You heard me - they don't physically laugh, they actually say LOL. And get this - why do people now say OMG? It takes the exact same amount of time to use the actual words. What's more, if someone doesn't know what OMG means, you then need to explain it to them, which would seem to make the whole abbreviation utterly redundant! So many morons - so few alibis.
Anyway, back to the point of this week's blog. I called the company in question because, as luck would have it, they happen to be a client of mine, and I asked them why it was that I was finding out this information through a rumour mill as opposed to some form of direct communication.
"Well you've opted out of our newsletter", was their reply. Fair enough, I did indeed opt out of the newsletter, but that's only because there's only so much junk my mailbox can receive before my computer becomes truly self aware and starts attacking the human race with offers of discounted double glazing and Viagra.
But therein lies the problem. Sometimes customers are interested in little bits of information from their suppliers - I mean it might not be all that often, but the occasional gentle nudge could go a long way to bringing about some new business. A customer who you haven't spoken with in three years may well be in the market for some sort of upgrade, but when was the last time you actually asked them if they were interested?
It all stems from what I talked about a little bit last week - a short term view. We want business NOW, and if someone tells us that they're not going to be in the market for another year, we tell them we'll call them in a year. Some of us will - MOST OF US WON'T.
What's worse, our competitors will call that customer in a year and then - and I suspect you know where I am going with this - BANG, we lose out to our competitors.
Just because someone has opted out of your newsletter does not mean that they are not interested in hearing from you. They're just not interested in hearing from you every 5 minutes. Face it, there are plenty of newsletters and mailers that I get from people with whom I have a good working relationship, but I don't read all of them. The truly important information will find its way to me, and I'm not talking about a sales mailer or some 5% off special offer which, let's be fair, is really neither special or that much of an offer.
No, I'm talking about the information that's actually going to make a difference to me should I choose to act upon it. Something that addresses a prior concern like "hey, you know you bought that software from us two years ago, well lots of customers said they wished it could do x, y and z and we're pleased to tell you that it now can."
See how powerful that was? They showed that they had listened to their customers and acted on the information. Well as I am a customer too, it's just possible that they may have addressed some of my issues too, so it would be stupid to not at least check it out wouldn't it?
Your existing customers will always be your very best resource - it's seven times harder to land a new customer than it is to cultivate an existing one (seriously, how exactly did they work that out? You know you read these statistics in all the sales training stuff and you blindly accept it as fact. I want to talk to the person that put that statistic together - does anyone have his details?)
In any given year, and at any given moment within that year, more than 50% of the people that you contact will not be in a position to buy. Does that mean you drop them from the database? Of course it doesn't. What it means is that you need to keep in front of them until they are in that position, whilst at the same time not being a pest. It's a fine line, but it's not difficult to walk it.
Of course, you could always send out the information in a much more creative way. Do you realise that there are thousands of promotional items which will fit very neatly into the very same envelope that you're using to send out a newsletter? If you're spending your days stuffing envelopes, you really should be stuffing them with something that's more likely to yield a response.
As for email marketing, well I've posted about that before - it needs to form part of your marketing plan, but it must not account for all of it. Junk email filters are commonplace and I use them across all of my email accounts. What shocks me is that, when I last checked, 94% of all emails sent to my home account in one month was junk. That is an astonishing figure, but just look at what it is doing to the email habits of the recipients - unless we recognise the name of the sender, we may well be skipping over information that would otherwise be useful to us.
We can all do so much better than that, and I want to help, because until that check from the Nigerian Lottery clears, I am going to need to keep working.
Have a good week.
Wednesday 14 April 2010
It's the little things
Do you know, last week I found myself in the town of Fareham in Hampshire. I mean I wasn't there by accident - I was supposed to be there. What struck me about this town is that, just to look at it, it looks like any other urban town with its collection of chain stores, fast food restaurants and shops selling everything for a pound.
Dig a little deeper however, and something really weird happens. The people working in the shops care. That's right - they actually care. These aren't people in their fifties who remember when service was service and people showed respect. No, these are young people - some of them fresh out of school, and yet everywhere I went I was treated with a welcome smile and useful information.
I'll give you some examples. I went into a jewellery store to look for a jewellery box for Shelly. Now it's not like she's got so much bling she doesn't know where to put it - it's just that Felix likes picking up shiny things, and he is perfectly comfortable opening up his Mummy's drawers and helping himself. Some say his inquisitive nature means he will grow up to be a scientist. My money is on international art thief, so it's anybody's guess at this stage.
The store in question did not sell jewellery boxes, but rather than simply let me leave with a shrug of the shoulders and a half baked apology from some chav with far too much make up and far too little intelligence, the young lady took the time to list those stores in the area that I might like to try, and she even offered me directions! I was blown away by this level of service - I was not even a paying customer, but she took the time to be helpful and I left her store with a happy smile across my face.
It gets better. Oh yes my friends - why stop at just one anecdote when the second one is even more surprising? I wanted to stop for a bite to eat and I am always happy to pay my respects to the nearest Golden Arches. Not only are they a valued customer of mine, but they are the one fast food restaurant when I can be sure of a certain standard of cleanliness. Plus I'm collecting the monopoly vouchers so that's handy too.
One thing I do not expect from them is a standard level of service. There are no two restaurants when I am greeted or treated in the same way. It's fine really - the person serving me has nothing to gain personally - they're not on some sort of commission and the majority of them are content to take money, hand over food and move on.
Over the years I have been greeted with everything from the "How may I Help you Please" which they're trained to use, to the more colloquial "Next Order Please", right down to "Yes mate", when the place is so busy that they choose to herd their customers like the cattle they're about to serve betwixt two halves of a sesame seed bun.
So what made this experience special. She called me SIR. That's right - sir. This girl must have been no more than 19 years old and yet she treated me with the respect that I deperately yearn for in today's high street.
Now it didn't make a difference to her, but it certainly did to me. I felt compelled to write about it in this week's blog, and rest assured that my friends at McHQ will be getting a mail from me letting them know just want a pleasant experience eating in their Fareham branch was.
I know I preach on and on about the value of good customer service, but in general, I come from the persepctive of someone wanting to help you generate more business. Between the two of them, the two young ladies in question didn't generate any more revenue from me than I had already planned to spend. What they did manage to achieve however, was to create a pleasant experience to someone who walked through their door.
I was made to feel uplifted, and when you're in a good mood, you tend to spead that mood amongst other people that you meet. Moods are infectious, and nobody wants to catch a bad one.
Now I only spoke of two experiences but the fact is that as I walked in and out of various shops in this area, there was not one person who didn't appear happy in their work and happy to help me. So what's going on here? More importantly, why is it that such an attitude should come as a pleasing alternative to the norm?
There really is no excuse for a poor work ethic. Everyone has bad days - of course they do, but true professionals leave their troubles at the door and do their job with pride. Think about the last time you dealt with someone like that - I bet it didn't take you long to remember them, and I bet you told your friends about the experience too.
So what are the people getting from you when they walk in the door or pick up the phone to you? Do you show them that you care and that you're not only able, but actually happy to help?
I want to march in defiance of bad service and poor attitudes - who's with me?
Dig a little deeper however, and something really weird happens. The people working in the shops care. That's right - they actually care. These aren't people in their fifties who remember when service was service and people showed respect. No, these are young people - some of them fresh out of school, and yet everywhere I went I was treated with a welcome smile and useful information.
I'll give you some examples. I went into a jewellery store to look for a jewellery box for Shelly. Now it's not like she's got so much bling she doesn't know where to put it - it's just that Felix likes picking up shiny things, and he is perfectly comfortable opening up his Mummy's drawers and helping himself. Some say his inquisitive nature means he will grow up to be a scientist. My money is on international art thief, so it's anybody's guess at this stage.
The store in question did not sell jewellery boxes, but rather than simply let me leave with a shrug of the shoulders and a half baked apology from some chav with far too much make up and far too little intelligence, the young lady took the time to list those stores in the area that I might like to try, and she even offered me directions! I was blown away by this level of service - I was not even a paying customer, but she took the time to be helpful and I left her store with a happy smile across my face.
It gets better. Oh yes my friends - why stop at just one anecdote when the second one is even more surprising? I wanted to stop for a bite to eat and I am always happy to pay my respects to the nearest Golden Arches. Not only are they a valued customer of mine, but they are the one fast food restaurant when I can be sure of a certain standard of cleanliness. Plus I'm collecting the monopoly vouchers so that's handy too.
One thing I do not expect from them is a standard level of service. There are no two restaurants when I am greeted or treated in the same way. It's fine really - the person serving me has nothing to gain personally - they're not on some sort of commission and the majority of them are content to take money, hand over food and move on.
Over the years I have been greeted with everything from the "How may I Help you Please" which they're trained to use, to the more colloquial "Next Order Please", right down to "Yes mate", when the place is so busy that they choose to herd their customers like the cattle they're about to serve betwixt two halves of a sesame seed bun.
So what made this experience special. She called me SIR. That's right - sir. This girl must have been no more than 19 years old and yet she treated me with the respect that I deperately yearn for in today's high street.
Now it didn't make a difference to her, but it certainly did to me. I felt compelled to write about it in this week's blog, and rest assured that my friends at McHQ will be getting a mail from me letting them know just want a pleasant experience eating in their Fareham branch was.
I know I preach on and on about the value of good customer service, but in general, I come from the persepctive of someone wanting to help you generate more business. Between the two of them, the two young ladies in question didn't generate any more revenue from me than I had already planned to spend. What they did manage to achieve however, was to create a pleasant experience to someone who walked through their door.
I was made to feel uplifted, and when you're in a good mood, you tend to spead that mood amongst other people that you meet. Moods are infectious, and nobody wants to catch a bad one.
Now I only spoke of two experiences but the fact is that as I walked in and out of various shops in this area, there was not one person who didn't appear happy in their work and happy to help me. So what's going on here? More importantly, why is it that such an attitude should come as a pleasing alternative to the norm?
There really is no excuse for a poor work ethic. Everyone has bad days - of course they do, but true professionals leave their troubles at the door and do their job with pride. Think about the last time you dealt with someone like that - I bet it didn't take you long to remember them, and I bet you told your friends about the experience too.
So what are the people getting from you when they walk in the door or pick up the phone to you? Do you show them that you care and that you're not only able, but actually happy to help?
I want to march in defiance of bad service and poor attitudes - who's with me?
Thursday 8 April 2010
Have some Fun
Here at Merchandise Mania we have a set of Key Beliefs and Values. Each member of staff has a plaque on their desk which reminds them of what these values are. There's nothing particularly surprising in there - you know the sort of thing - work as a team, win as a team, attitude is 90% of the game, Paul Rose is King, etc.
But there's one value on there which is my particular favourite, and it's the last one on the list. Quite simply, it is to Have Some Fun. It makes sense really - if your job wasn't fun then you wouldn't want to do it right?
Of course, it's not going to be fun 100% of the time. Let's face it, even those lucky folks working at Disneyworld feel a little put out once in a while, and that's supposed to be the happiest place on Earth.
Now just yesterday I met with a couple of people that are looking at their merchandise choices for the year ahead. They'd been through our catalogue but I pointed out that the real value in working with my company is that one of our people comes along and gets creative. Any idiot can sell a pen or quote prices based on items that the client has already chosen, so you don't need me for that.
The meeting itself turned out to be a lot of fun, and the reason was because these people were not simply looking at the product - they were looking at the message behind it. They were thinking about what the products said to people once they were handed over, and that is absolutely key when it comes to looking at promotional merchandise.
The company in question are part of an NHS team that provide support for people looking to quit smoking. Now certain people in the team wanted to offer up merchandise which talked about all of the negative aspects of being a smoker. That seems logical, except when you consider that the average smoker is not wandering around in blissful ignorance, completely unaware that they are doing themselves any harm.
No. The smart thing to do is to offer up merchandise which amplifies the positive aspects of not smoking - the money you save, the improvements to your health and energy levels, the return of your sense of taste and smell, and so on. As I sat there, I was amazed at just how many benefits there were, and what's more, as we continued having fun in our meeting, I actually found myself coming up with benefits that they had not even considered!
And that's the point of this week's blog - fun sparks creativity, and can take your sales processes in new directions, possibly even breathing new life into a project which was looking stale.
How you inject fun into the workplace is entirely your decision. I can heartily recommend a book called "Fish" by Stephen Lundin - it's a very quick read and real eye opener. I myself took quite a few lessons from it and a lot of my positivity comes from what I took out of that book.
So go and have a laugh, and then go and turn that joy into revenue. It doesn't need to be some wild gesture - just a little bit of fun can go a long way.
Now speaking of going a long way (see what I did there, clever eh?) I am once again hitting the streets in the name of charity. The Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon takes place in October of this year and I am running as part of the Help a London Child Team. If you would like to sponsor me (yes you would, you know you would - I give you all this stuff for free so frankly you owe me, and the money isn't even for me) then please visit www.justgiving.com/paulyrunsagain for more information.
Have a good (and fun) week.
But there's one value on there which is my particular favourite, and it's the last one on the list. Quite simply, it is to Have Some Fun. It makes sense really - if your job wasn't fun then you wouldn't want to do it right?
Of course, it's not going to be fun 100% of the time. Let's face it, even those lucky folks working at Disneyworld feel a little put out once in a while, and that's supposed to be the happiest place on Earth.
Now just yesterday I met with a couple of people that are looking at their merchandise choices for the year ahead. They'd been through our catalogue but I pointed out that the real value in working with my company is that one of our people comes along and gets creative. Any idiot can sell a pen or quote prices based on items that the client has already chosen, so you don't need me for that.
The meeting itself turned out to be a lot of fun, and the reason was because these people were not simply looking at the product - they were looking at the message behind it. They were thinking about what the products said to people once they were handed over, and that is absolutely key when it comes to looking at promotional merchandise.
The company in question are part of an NHS team that provide support for people looking to quit smoking. Now certain people in the team wanted to offer up merchandise which talked about all of the negative aspects of being a smoker. That seems logical, except when you consider that the average smoker is not wandering around in blissful ignorance, completely unaware that they are doing themselves any harm.
No. The smart thing to do is to offer up merchandise which amplifies the positive aspects of not smoking - the money you save, the improvements to your health and energy levels, the return of your sense of taste and smell, and so on. As I sat there, I was amazed at just how many benefits there were, and what's more, as we continued having fun in our meeting, I actually found myself coming up with benefits that they had not even considered!
And that's the point of this week's blog - fun sparks creativity, and can take your sales processes in new directions, possibly even breathing new life into a project which was looking stale.
How you inject fun into the workplace is entirely your decision. I can heartily recommend a book called "Fish" by Stephen Lundin - it's a very quick read and real eye opener. I myself took quite a few lessons from it and a lot of my positivity comes from what I took out of that book.
So go and have a laugh, and then go and turn that joy into revenue. It doesn't need to be some wild gesture - just a little bit of fun can go a long way.
Now speaking of going a long way (see what I did there, clever eh?) I am once again hitting the streets in the name of charity. The Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon takes place in October of this year and I am running as part of the Help a London Child Team. If you would like to sponsor me (yes you would, you know you would - I give you all this stuff for free so frankly you owe me, and the money isn't even for me) then please visit www.justgiving.com/paulyrunsagain for more information.
Have a good (and fun) week.
Thursday 1 April 2010
The Balance of Power
Well here we are in a brand new fiscal year. If you're in sales like me, then you will have come in this morning to see everything reset to zero. For some, it's a daunting prospect, especially if you celebrated having a good month in March. For others, it's a chance to draw a line under a poor year and look ahead to what new opportunities can be created. If you're a mega superstar sales person, then you'll be telling yourself that EVERY morning resets things to zero, so today is really no different. If so, you're my kind of thinker.
This week I want to talk about the balance of power that exists in your organisation and how it is perceived with your customers and suppliers.
I was inspired to write about this when I realised that there was something really weird going on in our offices. I started to notice that I was more important than some of the people that work with me. No, I'm not trying to be smug here, so let me explain.
Very often in the world of promotional merchandise, orders can run into problems. Print specs can be proofed incorrectly, delivery dates can go off course - you know the sort of thing that I mean. Now when this happens, the factory producing the merchandise will get in touch with our order processing people and let them know that there's a problem. Nine times out of ten, that problem can be addressed and becomes nothing more than a minor glitch - there's no loss of love and we all go on about our day with a cheery smile and a spring in our step (what do you mean your office isn't as happy as that?)
But then there's the one time out of ten where the problem is just a little bigger, and here's where it gets weird. The factory will tell admin the state of the order and that they have done all they can to fix it and that there is nothing left available for them to do. They have exhausted all of their options and they're sorry - genuinely sorry - but that is that. At this stage the account manager (that's me) gets on the phone to the factory and by pointing out to them that this is not acceptable, magical things start to happen. Things that, two minutes ago were impossible, suddenly become possible. It's a miracle - I truly can turn water into wine! See my point - I am more important than my colleagues. End of story.
STOP!!!!!!
That's bloody ridiculous. I am a representative of Merchandise Mania. The customer whose order is going wrong is not my personal customer, they are a customer of my company. The relationship that I have with my suppliers is not my relationship, it is my company's, so why is it that I am able to get results for people when my colleagues can't?
Bottom line - if you tell someone that you have done all that you can, then you better make damn sure that you really have done ALL that you can. When you've finished thinking logically, head straight out of the box and look around there. Every problem has a solution, and you're not going to win any gold stars by only solving the easy ones.
If you are a supplier, don't fall into the trap of simply apologising for not being able to deliver on what you promised. A lack of integrity is going to cost you big time in the long run. Manage the expectations of your customers. If they want delivery in 1 week and you know that the order can take between 1 week and 10 days, then tell them exactly that. If they can wait 10 days, they will do, but if they absolutely, positively have to have it there in a week then you need to make a judgement call to either turn the business away or put all of the processes in place BEFORE you take their order so that they can get it in a week.
But to truly address the point of this week's blog - if you are the person who is apparently more important than your colleagues in the eyes of your suppliers, tell those suppliers off. Do it right now. Don't wait for the next major screw up before you get involved, instead make a point of ensuring that they understand just how annoying it is for you to have to waste your time doing tasks that other people in your organisation are actually being paid to do.
Oh sure, being the top dog is important. No doubt we've all had instances where the MD has had to get involved in a problem and yet all he or she has done is say the exact things that you were going to say anyway - they're just more important than you are right? WRONG! They have seniority and that is all. In the eyes of people doing business with your company, everyone in your organisation should have the same importance - you upset one of us and you upset all of us!
And no, I'm not some advocate of communism - I do believe in a hierarchy, it just strikes me that an awful lot of time is being wasted by people who believe that they are dealing with organisations at a personal level. We are, all of us, representatives of our firms - it is our organisations that have the real power in business, and if our suppliers don't choose to respect that, it's fair to say that they won't be our suppliers for very long - do you think it's the same where you are?
Now this week I could really use your help. After writing this blog for over a year and a half, I'd like to see if I can get my work published. There are plenty of people who offer self publishing opportunities on the Internet but before I go down that route, I wonder if any of you know a publisher (or maybe are a publisher) who'd like to put this stuff in print. I'd love to discuss the opportunity with you so please get in touch.
Have a good week and enjoy your Easter.
This week I want to talk about the balance of power that exists in your organisation and how it is perceived with your customers and suppliers.
I was inspired to write about this when I realised that there was something really weird going on in our offices. I started to notice that I was more important than some of the people that work with me. No, I'm not trying to be smug here, so let me explain.
Very often in the world of promotional merchandise, orders can run into problems. Print specs can be proofed incorrectly, delivery dates can go off course - you know the sort of thing that I mean. Now when this happens, the factory producing the merchandise will get in touch with our order processing people and let them know that there's a problem. Nine times out of ten, that problem can be addressed and becomes nothing more than a minor glitch - there's no loss of love and we all go on about our day with a cheery smile and a spring in our step (what do you mean your office isn't as happy as that?)
But then there's the one time out of ten where the problem is just a little bigger, and here's where it gets weird. The factory will tell admin the state of the order and that they have done all they can to fix it and that there is nothing left available for them to do. They have exhausted all of their options and they're sorry - genuinely sorry - but that is that. At this stage the account manager (that's me) gets on the phone to the factory and by pointing out to them that this is not acceptable, magical things start to happen. Things that, two minutes ago were impossible, suddenly become possible. It's a miracle - I truly can turn water into wine! See my point - I am more important than my colleagues. End of story.
STOP!!!!!!
That's bloody ridiculous. I am a representative of Merchandise Mania. The customer whose order is going wrong is not my personal customer, they are a customer of my company. The relationship that I have with my suppliers is not my relationship, it is my company's, so why is it that I am able to get results for people when my colleagues can't?
Bottom line - if you tell someone that you have done all that you can, then you better make damn sure that you really have done ALL that you can. When you've finished thinking logically, head straight out of the box and look around there. Every problem has a solution, and you're not going to win any gold stars by only solving the easy ones.
If you are a supplier, don't fall into the trap of simply apologising for not being able to deliver on what you promised. A lack of integrity is going to cost you big time in the long run. Manage the expectations of your customers. If they want delivery in 1 week and you know that the order can take between 1 week and 10 days, then tell them exactly that. If they can wait 10 days, they will do, but if they absolutely, positively have to have it there in a week then you need to make a judgement call to either turn the business away or put all of the processes in place BEFORE you take their order so that they can get it in a week.
But to truly address the point of this week's blog - if you are the person who is apparently more important than your colleagues in the eyes of your suppliers, tell those suppliers off. Do it right now. Don't wait for the next major screw up before you get involved, instead make a point of ensuring that they understand just how annoying it is for you to have to waste your time doing tasks that other people in your organisation are actually being paid to do.
Oh sure, being the top dog is important. No doubt we've all had instances where the MD has had to get involved in a problem and yet all he or she has done is say the exact things that you were going to say anyway - they're just more important than you are right? WRONG! They have seniority and that is all. In the eyes of people doing business with your company, everyone in your organisation should have the same importance - you upset one of us and you upset all of us!
And no, I'm not some advocate of communism - I do believe in a hierarchy, it just strikes me that an awful lot of time is being wasted by people who believe that they are dealing with organisations at a personal level. We are, all of us, representatives of our firms - it is our organisations that have the real power in business, and if our suppliers don't choose to respect that, it's fair to say that they won't be our suppliers for very long - do you think it's the same where you are?
Now this week I could really use your help. After writing this blog for over a year and a half, I'd like to see if I can get my work published. There are plenty of people who offer self publishing opportunities on the Internet but before I go down that route, I wonder if any of you know a publisher (or maybe are a publisher) who'd like to put this stuff in print. I'd love to discuss the opportunity with you so please get in touch.
Have a good week and enjoy your Easter.
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