In a change from our regularly scheduled programming, this week we bring you video. The new Merchandise Mania TV channel is now on You Tube and here is our first installment. Yes, I do talk about pens, so please don't hold that against me - there's some other cool stuff in here too!
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Being rude saves me several hours a week
At least once a day, I get some kind of email newsletter sent through to me. I have not spoken with the sender in years, and I don’t actually read the content. The email will last less than ten seconds in my inbox before being consigned to the watery depths of my recycle bin. Incidentally, how politically correct is that? It’s not a recycling bin – it’s the trash. It’s not like my deleted files are going to be remade into something more useful is it?
Here’s the thing. Each one of these emails has an unsubscribe option down the bottom, but I don’t want to click on it. It’s not because I believe that, at some point, they might send me something useful – I mean, how would I know, because I’ve already told you that I don’t read it.
The reason I don’t unsubscribe is to spare the sender’s feelings. I don’t want someone to know that I am no longer interested in what he or she has to tell me, but I don’t want to upset them either.
Am I doing them a disservice? Absolutely. Any smart business keeps metrics on everything, and if they’re doing a mailing campaign, they want to keep track on just how many emails they’re sending out.
How proud the firm that can boast that they’ve just completed an email campaign to 50,000 recipients! Yeah, well – that’s lovely, but just how many people actually read the email and took advantage of the information or offer being shared? “We’re delighted to have had 15 new enquiries,” they say.
OK, so 15 is actually pretty good – but it’s only 0.03% - which is not so impressive.
The trouble is that we are a society of polite liars. We reject sales calls by telling people we’re in meetings. We tell people we’ll get back to them when we know we’re not really interested. We tell people we’ll ‘think about it’ when we’ve already made up our minds that the answer is no.
Why must we equate honesty with rudeness? Surely it’s so much ruder to let someone believe that they may be about to do some business with us when we know that they won’t.
Now there are plenty of people who think I’m rude. I tell people I’m not interested, or that I’m not going to take part in a certain activity. It’s not that I’m busy or have something more important – I’m just not interested. Certainly I often get challenged as to why, and that is a good conversation, rather than an attempt to close a sale.
I’m not suggesting that you shut every opportunity down before it starts to blossom, but you know as well as I do that there are whole bunch of things that come into you on a daily basis which simply stir no emotional response. They are blank space, and they’re stealing your life from under you.
Just think about how much of your busy time you could claw back if you just told people “no” instead of “I’ll let you know”. Sales people will stop calling, irrelevant emails will stop arriving and unnecessary meetings will cease to be.
Doesn’t that sound like heaven?
Here’s the thing. Each one of these emails has an unsubscribe option down the bottom, but I don’t want to click on it. It’s not because I believe that, at some point, they might send me something useful – I mean, how would I know, because I’ve already told you that I don’t read it.
The reason I don’t unsubscribe is to spare the sender’s feelings. I don’t want someone to know that I am no longer interested in what he or she has to tell me, but I don’t want to upset them either.
Am I doing them a disservice? Absolutely. Any smart business keeps metrics on everything, and if they’re doing a mailing campaign, they want to keep track on just how many emails they’re sending out.
How proud the firm that can boast that they’ve just completed an email campaign to 50,000 recipients! Yeah, well – that’s lovely, but just how many people actually read the email and took advantage of the information or offer being shared? “We’re delighted to have had 15 new enquiries,” they say.
OK, so 15 is actually pretty good – but it’s only 0.03% - which is not so impressive.
The trouble is that we are a society of polite liars. We reject sales calls by telling people we’re in meetings. We tell people we’ll get back to them when we know we’re not really interested. We tell people we’ll ‘think about it’ when we’ve already made up our minds that the answer is no.
Why must we equate honesty with rudeness? Surely it’s so much ruder to let someone believe that they may be about to do some business with us when we know that they won’t.
Now there are plenty of people who think I’m rude. I tell people I’m not interested, or that I’m not going to take part in a certain activity. It’s not that I’m busy or have something more important – I’m just not interested. Certainly I often get challenged as to why, and that is a good conversation, rather than an attempt to close a sale.
I’m not suggesting that you shut every opportunity down before it starts to blossom, but you know as well as I do that there are whole bunch of things that come into you on a daily basis which simply stir no emotional response. They are blank space, and they’re stealing your life from under you.
Just think about how much of your busy time you could claw back if you just told people “no” instead of “I’ll let you know”. Sales people will stop calling, irrelevant emails will stop arriving and unnecessary meetings will cease to be.
Doesn’t that sound like heaven?
Thursday, 15 July 2010
You're on a roll
Have you ever played darts? I don’t mean pinning a photo of some Z list celebrity on a board and aiming for the eyes – I mean proper, normal darts?
If you have, even just once or twice, then you’ll be familiar with the fact that if you throw them very quickly in succession, that the second and third dart are more likely to land quite close to the first one. It’s like your arm has some sort of targeting mechanism that works for very small periods of time.
Professional darts players know this too. If you ever watch them play, you can see that in the earliest stages of the game, when they’re trying to score as much as possible, that they barely pause between throws.
How is this relevant to you? Well the same could be said of sales people. Have you ever noticed that once a particular sales person gets a good order, that another two of three seem to come along almost immediately? To coin a phrase, these people are “on a roll”.
Gamblers have winning streaks, sales people have roles, but it all comes down to the same thing. Positive results have a sort of magnetism to them. You get one great result and you feel good about it. That positive, good feeling feeds back on itself and you grow more and more successful.
But it’s not all tree hugging, hippy crap – sure, there is something to be said for a positive vibe, but in isolation it’s about as much use as a pork pie at a Barmitzvah.
Feeling good and positive changes the way we act. We speak with more confidence, we smile more, we’re open to new ideas and conversations, hence we essentially become someone that others actually want to do business with.
Armed with this, it’s easy to work out how to turn your losing streak into a winning one. Just tell yourself that it’s finished. It happens to everyone and thanks very much but you’re done with it now. Now take a deep breath and then tell yourself that you are in the midst of another winning streak. Really take the time to believe it, and then pick up the phone and make your next sales call.
If you’ve convinced yourself effectively, you’ll notice a pleasant change in the way people respond to you, and before very long, that winning streak that you just made up will actually become real.
Good luck.
If you have, even just once or twice, then you’ll be familiar with the fact that if you throw them very quickly in succession, that the second and third dart are more likely to land quite close to the first one. It’s like your arm has some sort of targeting mechanism that works for very small periods of time.
Professional darts players know this too. If you ever watch them play, you can see that in the earliest stages of the game, when they’re trying to score as much as possible, that they barely pause between throws.
How is this relevant to you? Well the same could be said of sales people. Have you ever noticed that once a particular sales person gets a good order, that another two of three seem to come along almost immediately? To coin a phrase, these people are “on a roll”.
Gamblers have winning streaks, sales people have roles, but it all comes down to the same thing. Positive results have a sort of magnetism to them. You get one great result and you feel good about it. That positive, good feeling feeds back on itself and you grow more and more successful.
But it’s not all tree hugging, hippy crap – sure, there is something to be said for a positive vibe, but in isolation it’s about as much use as a pork pie at a Barmitzvah.
Feeling good and positive changes the way we act. We speak with more confidence, we smile more, we’re open to new ideas and conversations, hence we essentially become someone that others actually want to do business with.
Armed with this, it’s easy to work out how to turn your losing streak into a winning one. Just tell yourself that it’s finished. It happens to everyone and thanks very much but you’re done with it now. Now take a deep breath and then tell yourself that you are in the midst of another winning streak. Really take the time to believe it, and then pick up the phone and make your next sales call.
If you’ve convinced yourself effectively, you’ll notice a pleasant change in the way people respond to you, and before very long, that winning streak that you just made up will actually become real.
Good luck.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
My Supermarket Thinks I'm an Idiot
Now I don't think it's fair to name names here - in fact it may even constitute liable, but I'm getting just a little bit fed up with my local supermarket. I'm faced with aisle upon aisle of special offers - buy one get one free, buy two for only £5, buy three and the cheapest item costs nothing and blah blah blah.
The trouble is that these offers are robbing people of their hard earned cash - buying two perishable items, desperately believing that they'll eat both of them before their sell by date and giving themselves a pat on the back for saving that all important 50p.
But the deals are all wrong, and to illustrate my point - here are three deals that I spotted whilst shopping last night:
Dairylea Cheese Slices - perfect for the burgers that you'll be doing on the BBQ this weekend. 16 slices will cost you £1.86. Not bad. However, 8 slices will cost you £1.25 and this week it's by one, get one free! What moron is going to be buying the 16 pack?
Caffeine Free Diet Coke - my wife drinks it so don't judge me. A pack of 8 cans for only £3.50, or if you prefer, you can take home a pack of 12 cans for.....wait for it.....£3.50!
Fabric Softener - 1.5l for just £3.37, or you can buy 750ml for £1.67. Hold on a sec - doesn't that mean that if I buy two bottles I actually save money? Well yes it does, and this is a major bone of contention for me, because these people are essentially encouraging people to go through more packaging. It's ecologically unsound to encourage us to buy 2 smaller bottles as opposed to one big one, and the argument against that could fill another blog all on its own.
The supermarket's response to these errors? "Well it's the price we're told to sell at," oh come off it, you're a major client to the suppliers, so you should be able to dictate the prices that you charge, don't go fobbing it off on some faceless distributor! Now I want to see how many more of these ridicuous offers are out there, so please send them to me, either as a comment to this blog or on an email, and let's see if we can collectively do something about this.
Remember, I won't name names - but every little helps.
The trouble is that these offers are robbing people of their hard earned cash - buying two perishable items, desperately believing that they'll eat both of them before their sell by date and giving themselves a pat on the back for saving that all important 50p.
But the deals are all wrong, and to illustrate my point - here are three deals that I spotted whilst shopping last night:
Dairylea Cheese Slices - perfect for the burgers that you'll be doing on the BBQ this weekend. 16 slices will cost you £1.86. Not bad. However, 8 slices will cost you £1.25 and this week it's by one, get one free! What moron is going to be buying the 16 pack?
Caffeine Free Diet Coke - my wife drinks it so don't judge me. A pack of 8 cans for only £3.50, or if you prefer, you can take home a pack of 12 cans for.....wait for it.....£3.50!
Fabric Softener - 1.5l for just £3.37, or you can buy 750ml for £1.67. Hold on a sec - doesn't that mean that if I buy two bottles I actually save money? Well yes it does, and this is a major bone of contention for me, because these people are essentially encouraging people to go through more packaging. It's ecologically unsound to encourage us to buy 2 smaller bottles as opposed to one big one, and the argument against that could fill another blog all on its own.
The supermarket's response to these errors? "Well it's the price we're told to sell at," oh come off it, you're a major client to the suppliers, so you should be able to dictate the prices that you charge, don't go fobbing it off on some faceless distributor! Now I want to see how many more of these ridicuous offers are out there, so please send them to me, either as a comment to this blog or on an email, and let's see if we can collectively do something about this.
Remember, I won't name names - but every little helps.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
EWVXGFDA - These random letters are worth a fortune
A very good morning to you all. As I write this, England are enjoying the euphoria of not being knocked out of the World Cup at the group stages. It's an odd mentality isn't it? We don't so much celebrate winning as we celebrate not losing. Still, it's nice to see so many people in a good mood, so let's see if we can keep it up.
This week I want to talk to you about voucher codes. Now there are a number of sites out there that will offer you discounts on restaurants, high street retail stores, attractions and all sorts of things. All you need to do is know where to find them, print them out and WHAM - money saved.
Shelly (that's my wife for all you new readers out there, and as much as I'd like her to read this blog, she rarely does) asked me what the point was in these vouchers. Why would anyone want to just give discounts to anyone who asks? It's fairly obvious though - these vouchers are an enticement. As a shopper you may well be saving 20-30%, but without the voucher you may well not have shopped there at all, so everybody wins - especially the retailer who has created a new customer.
Indeed, these people are buying your business, and the fact is that the system is working. I don't even think about shopping without checking the voucher sites first these days. But is there more to the story? Of course there is.
Let's say you're exhibiting at your first ever trade show and you've decided to have some promotional gifts on your stand. If you printed some kind of voucher code on the merchandise, then you would have a way to measure just where your customers are coming from.
Think about it - when you ask customers how they heard of you (waddya mean you don't ask - you really should) then a lot of them will simply say they Googled you. They're not lying to you, it's just that the correct answer is not all that important to them and they won't have remembered.
How much more powerful is this though? "Hello, I was at your stand at the recent ABC Exhibition and I have a voucher here - the code is WVXYG - is the offer still valid?"
Fantastic! You see if you give out, lets say, 1000 gifts and you get 150 calls like this, then you know that your merchandise is giving you a 15% return which is pretty great. You've tested it, you've measured it, and given the success ratio, there's a strong chance that you will repeat it, perhaps with even greater numbers next time.
Remember - a gift, in and of itself, really won't do that much for your business. Applied correctly, it could be a serious turning point for you.
Have a great week in business.
This week I want to talk to you about voucher codes. Now there are a number of sites out there that will offer you discounts on restaurants, high street retail stores, attractions and all sorts of things. All you need to do is know where to find them, print them out and WHAM - money saved.
Shelly (that's my wife for all you new readers out there, and as much as I'd like her to read this blog, she rarely does) asked me what the point was in these vouchers. Why would anyone want to just give discounts to anyone who asks? It's fairly obvious though - these vouchers are an enticement. As a shopper you may well be saving 20-30%, but without the voucher you may well not have shopped there at all, so everybody wins - especially the retailer who has created a new customer.
Indeed, these people are buying your business, and the fact is that the system is working. I don't even think about shopping without checking the voucher sites first these days. But is there more to the story? Of course there is.
Let's say you're exhibiting at your first ever trade show and you've decided to have some promotional gifts on your stand. If you printed some kind of voucher code on the merchandise, then you would have a way to measure just where your customers are coming from.
Think about it - when you ask customers how they heard of you (waddya mean you don't ask - you really should) then a lot of them will simply say they Googled you. They're not lying to you, it's just that the correct answer is not all that important to them and they won't have remembered.
How much more powerful is this though? "Hello, I was at your stand at the recent ABC Exhibition and I have a voucher here - the code is WVXYG - is the offer still valid?"
Fantastic! You see if you give out, lets say, 1000 gifts and you get 150 calls like this, then you know that your merchandise is giving you a 15% return which is pretty great. You've tested it, you've measured it, and given the success ratio, there's a strong chance that you will repeat it, perhaps with even greater numbers next time.
Remember - a gift, in and of itself, really won't do that much for your business. Applied correctly, it could be a serious turning point for you.
Have a great week in business.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Sorry to interrupt? NEVER!
We’ve all been through it – it’s the end of a long day and we’ve finally kicked off our shoes and settled onto the sofa when WHAM! The phone rings and once you’ve said “hello” three times waiting for the call centre operator’s software to kick in, they launch into their pitch:
“Good evening Mr Rose. Sorry to bother you. I’m calling from wer;lkjvfwe0r9qwecvnuwer…….zzzzzzzz” I mean they may as well be speaking gibberish after that awful opening. “Sorry to bother you” is a line that really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.
The problem is that it is weak, and it sucks all of the confidence out of the call. The person trying to sell you their goods or services clearly doesn’t believe that what they have to offer is any good. If they did, it wouldn’t be a bother at all would it.
I mean think about it. Does this sound like a likely scenario? “Good evening Mr Rose, I’m calling from National Savings and Investments and I am delighted to tell you that you have just won one million pounds!!!!”
Are the people at NSI sorry to bother me? Of course not. They know I am going to be ecstatic about the reason they’re calling.
Are people going to be just as pleased to take your call? Sure, chances are you’re not calling to give them something, but if you really believe in the value of your product, why wouldn’t you be just as enthusiastic?
“Good morning Mr Prospect. My name is Paul Rose and I’m calling today to see just how we can help you make the most of your promotional merchandise.” I’m not sorry to bother them because I am there to help them. It’ll come across in the tone of my voice and the shake of my hand when I meet them.
That’s right – they’re lucky I called. I could have helped any one of their competitors today but I chose to offer my expertise to them! Now do the people making sales calls in your organisation put out the same vibe when they pick up the phone? If not, then they’ll be sorry……
“Good evening Mr Rose. Sorry to bother you. I’m calling from wer;lkjvfwe0r9qwecvnuwer…….zzzzzzzz” I mean they may as well be speaking gibberish after that awful opening. “Sorry to bother you” is a line that really makes the hairs on the back of my neck stick up.
The problem is that it is weak, and it sucks all of the confidence out of the call. The person trying to sell you their goods or services clearly doesn’t believe that what they have to offer is any good. If they did, it wouldn’t be a bother at all would it.
I mean think about it. Does this sound like a likely scenario? “Good evening Mr Rose, I’m calling from National Savings and Investments and I am delighted to tell you that you have just won one million pounds!!!!”
Are the people at NSI sorry to bother me? Of course not. They know I am going to be ecstatic about the reason they’re calling.
Are people going to be just as pleased to take your call? Sure, chances are you’re not calling to give them something, but if you really believe in the value of your product, why wouldn’t you be just as enthusiastic?
“Good morning Mr Prospect. My name is Paul Rose and I’m calling today to see just how we can help you make the most of your promotional merchandise.” I’m not sorry to bother them because I am there to help them. It’ll come across in the tone of my voice and the shake of my hand when I meet them.
That’s right – they’re lucky I called. I could have helped any one of their competitors today but I chose to offer my expertise to them! Now do the people making sales calls in your organisation put out the same vibe when they pick up the phone? If not, then they’ll be sorry……
Thursday, 10 June 2010
A lack of integrity is costing you big time
Many years ago I attended a personal development programme known as The Landmark Forum. Many of you will have heard of it, and some of you may well have gone through it yourselves. To those people, you know all this stuff, so why not just flick over to my website and have a look at all the new merchandise that we have to offer.
I want to talk to you about integrity. Now this word means many things to many people, but for the purposes of this blog – and any future dealings that you may have with me – the definition is very straight forward. It is quite simply doing what you say you are going to do, when you say you’re going to do it.
Not exactly rocket science, but you’d be amazed just how many “professional” organisations fall down miserably on this point.
Allow me to elaborate. I’m having a bit of trouble with a mobile broadband service provider at the moment. Now discretion prevents me from naming names, but suffice to say that their name is synonymous with the symbol for carbon dioxide, once you take all the carbon out.
After going round the houses and getting absolutely nowhere, the person on the phone gave me his word that he would call me back the next day. Now I’ve dealt with these people before, as has my wife, and I didn’t believe for a moment that he would actually call me, so I questioned him on it. With all the reserve I could muster (and that’s a lot of reserve let me tell you) the conversation went like this:
“No offence (OK, I realise that these words usually mean that the statement to follow has a 99.9% chance of actually causing offence) but I have no faith in the statement that you will call me tomorrow. In all my history of dealing with your company, nobody has ever called me back once they’ve promised to do so”.
“I understand Mr. Rose”, he offers, “but my Team Leader has told me to make sure that I will call you. So it’s in my notes to do so and I’ll be in tomorrow afternoon and will give you a call.”
I see – so despite the fact he’d offered to do it anyway, it seems that unless his manager was on his case to provide basic customer service, that he simply would not have bothered at all?
So did he call back the next day? I think we all know the answer to that question. But it gets worse – when I called the day after it turned out that he had made no notes reminding him to call me at all!
What kind of crappy customer relationship management is that? It’s bad enough that these massive organisations like this make you feel like just another number, but when given the chance to do just a little better, they totally stuff it up!
Anyway, rant over – I put in a formal complaint to them and they plan to invest more in staff training. Quite sad though that the training in question is to tell them to not lie to their customers. I mean seriously, if you don’t think you’ll be in a position to call me tomorrow then just don’t tell me that you will.
It all comes down to managing expectations. If you know that an order will take 7-10 days to fulfil, tell the client 10 days. That way the customer is either satisfied that their goods are on time, or delighted that they are early. Tell them 7 days just because you think it’s what they want to hear and you are inviting a world of trouble.
Is it really necessary to point out to the business world that they should not lie to their customers? Sadly, in the faceless, unqualified, most likely to not care about their job, assuming they’re even in this country – not that I’m a racist or anything but come on, you know what I mean – call centre mentality, the sad truth is that integrity has been lost to the ages.
Just don’t stand for it OK? If you’re getting given the wrong information by any of your providers, call them on it, and demand better of your business partners. Ultimately, the world will be a better place for it.
I want to talk to you about integrity. Now this word means many things to many people, but for the purposes of this blog – and any future dealings that you may have with me – the definition is very straight forward. It is quite simply doing what you say you are going to do, when you say you’re going to do it.
Not exactly rocket science, but you’d be amazed just how many “professional” organisations fall down miserably on this point.
Allow me to elaborate. I’m having a bit of trouble with a mobile broadband service provider at the moment. Now discretion prevents me from naming names, but suffice to say that their name is synonymous with the symbol for carbon dioxide, once you take all the carbon out.
After going round the houses and getting absolutely nowhere, the person on the phone gave me his word that he would call me back the next day. Now I’ve dealt with these people before, as has my wife, and I didn’t believe for a moment that he would actually call me, so I questioned him on it. With all the reserve I could muster (and that’s a lot of reserve let me tell you) the conversation went like this:
“No offence (OK, I realise that these words usually mean that the statement to follow has a 99.9% chance of actually causing offence) but I have no faith in the statement that you will call me tomorrow. In all my history of dealing with your company, nobody has ever called me back once they’ve promised to do so”.
“I understand Mr. Rose”, he offers, “but my Team Leader has told me to make sure that I will call you. So it’s in my notes to do so and I’ll be in tomorrow afternoon and will give you a call.”
I see – so despite the fact he’d offered to do it anyway, it seems that unless his manager was on his case to provide basic customer service, that he simply would not have bothered at all?
So did he call back the next day? I think we all know the answer to that question. But it gets worse – when I called the day after it turned out that he had made no notes reminding him to call me at all!
What kind of crappy customer relationship management is that? It’s bad enough that these massive organisations like this make you feel like just another number, but when given the chance to do just a little better, they totally stuff it up!
Anyway, rant over – I put in a formal complaint to them and they plan to invest more in staff training. Quite sad though that the training in question is to tell them to not lie to their customers. I mean seriously, if you don’t think you’ll be in a position to call me tomorrow then just don’t tell me that you will.
It all comes down to managing expectations. If you know that an order will take 7-10 days to fulfil, tell the client 10 days. That way the customer is either satisfied that their goods are on time, or delighted that they are early. Tell them 7 days just because you think it’s what they want to hear and you are inviting a world of trouble.
Is it really necessary to point out to the business world that they should not lie to their customers? Sadly, in the faceless, unqualified, most likely to not care about their job, assuming they’re even in this country – not that I’m a racist or anything but come on, you know what I mean – call centre mentality, the sad truth is that integrity has been lost to the ages.
Just don’t stand for it OK? If you’re getting given the wrong information by any of your providers, call them on it, and demand better of your business partners. Ultimately, the world will be a better place for it.
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