Point of View
"If there is any one secret of success,
it lies in the ability to get the other
person's point of view and see things from
that person's angle as well as from your
own." --Henry Ford
I have mentioned in previous columns how
important it is to know your customer. The
most common mistake that I see businesses,
especially small businesses, make is to not
consider the sales and service experience
from the customer's point of view. It shows
in the marketing message that lists the
features of a particular product or service,
but not the benefits to the customer. It
shows in the absence of service after the
sale. I recently encountered an example of a
sales pitch that completely missed its target.
As most of you know, my primary business is
soft skills training. I provide entertaining
and customized low- cost solutions to
businesses and
organizations that need training for their
employees - on customer service,
communication, team building, business
writing, and other topics. In an effort to
know what the competition is doing and also
to find places where I can get additional
training, I have signed up for newsletters
from training organizations. I have been
receiving email updates from one particular
large training company for a couple of months
now. The
newsletters have been primarily pitches to
attend their training sessions, but each one
includes a helpful piece of information from
the sessions.
Missing the opportunity
Last week, I received a phone call from the
person who is responsible for the local
branch of this organization. He identified
himself and asked for me. I thanked him for
the newsletters. He asked if they had been
helpful and I said they had. Then he asked,
"Would you be interested in attending one of
our training sessions?" I told him I would,
but that their training was out of my
ballpark financially. He asked what I would
hope to get out of a session if I were able
to attend. I was honest with him. "I would
be attending to learn information to use in
my own sessions." He seemed confused by this
answer. I suddenly realized that he had no
idea what I did for a living. He did not
know that I owned my own business, training
or otherwise.
He hadn't done his homework. The company's
newsletter has been coming to
crystal@crystallizations.com and it doesn't
take much to substitute the crystal@ with www
to learn what type of business I am in. Even
if he didn't want to take the time to visit
my website, the first question could have
been "What type of business are you in?" He
then could have pitched his sale to my
interests. It's one thing to send out generic
marketing
materials, but if you are going to go to the
trouble of making a personal sales call,
doesn't it make sense to take a bit more time
to check the person's web address (if it
isn't a general account like Yahoo, AOL, or
Gmail)?
Research pays off
Imagine how much more targeted that sales
call could have been if there had been some
effort put into knowing what my interest
would be. He could have started by saying,
"You do training as well, don't you?" I would
have immediately been more receptive to his
information. He could have quickly
adjusted his pitch to make it match my interests.
If you find that you aren't landing the sale
after making the call or your customers
don't return after the first sale, the reason
may be that you are missing your target. Try
to walk
through the customer's experience from start
to finish. What does the customer encounter?
What can you do to make that a better and
more productive experience for your customer?
Keep the customer's point of view in mind and
you'll bring that customer back for more.
