If you’ve missed the last few posts, here’s a Cliff’s Notes version to get you caught up and in the know. Cutting-edge sales and marketing insight condensed to spoon-sized portions and pushed out in a “new rules” format. Your head will be spinning.
New Rule #1
Want more productivity and happier employees at the same time? Match the personality to the task. Each position in your small business is important but focus on just three and look for these contrasting qualities:
Customer service—positive disposition, extreme patience, genuinely friendly;
Supply chain—they fancy themselves as actors, they can put on the smiley face and suck it up on demand. Underneath the thick skin and the tattoos is a ruthless and cold individual who will not take no for an answer,
Production—tenacious, focused and responsible, they’re not actors and they are rarely people-people.
[See “Three types of employees fill the most important seats.”—October 21, 2011]
New Rule #2
Defending the status quo can kill your company. The defeated ones kept doing what they were doing—failing to adapt and failing to heed to changing customer needs and expectations.
Avoidance #1: Shoot for “remarkable” every step of the way. “Boring” alone kills the power of word of mouth.
Avoidance #2: Consider the cost of switching before you consider the benefits. Revere long-term improvements and renounce short-term costs. Stay positive and enable productivity with sharp decision-making.
[See “2 Ways to avoid defending the status quo.” —September 1, 2011
New Rule #3
The Internet has made the purchasing process more convenient. Customers have taken control of the process. They will go first to your website to get the information they seek. If they have a bad experience—and you don’t meet expectations—you’ve probably lost them. When you think about your web presence, you have to think about your customer. Revisit your virtual storefront, make sure you’re meeting your customers’ changing expectations.
[See “Buyer’s expectations are changing. Know the first rule before updating your coatings website.”—November 5, 2011]
New Rule #4
Change your sales strategy from targeting direct customers to finding strategic partners who will share customer contacts with you. These “Strategic Relationships” reward you [and your partner] with an annuity stream of business versus a single transaction. This is a no-brainer if you want to save time and increase the ROI of sales and networking efforts.
[See “Create the strategic relationship—not the sale.”—November 23, 2011]
Want to read more? Go to “Home” from the link on the upper left then copy/paste or type the first couple of words of the story title in the search box on the upper right.
Next year we’ll make “New Rules” a quarterly wrap up. Stay with us.
I welcome your comments, questions or more discussion.