What’s the difference between a member, a client and a customer?

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What’s the difference between a member, a client and a customer?

July 22, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Culture, Customer Service, Ethics & Values, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Strategy

What’s in a name? Well, there seems to be some confusion in the market place around the terminology used to describe those people who pay us money for goods, services, experiences, donations, etc.

Different industries can have different terms for the consumers of their products and/or services. We see terms such as customer, client, patient, guest, patron, member, subscriber, donor, etc. used to describe a person who buys our products or services and intends to use them directly. In short, these terms are referring to the same person – the ‘end user’. However, not everyone ‘consumes’ our products or services or is the intended ‘end user’. Some people or businesses buy our products or services to ‘on sell’ them to another party, often the final end user, but not always.

Many industries might a have a chain of buyers and only one will be the end user. For instance, if we follow the chain from the manufacturer who sells via a wholesaler (partner or client) who then sells to a retailer (client or customer) who then sells to the end user (customer or consumer), we can have several terms to distinguish who’s who.

If this is your situation, it does help to define who is who by having specific terms such as ‘client’, ‘member’, ‘customer’ or ‘consumer’ so we can keep track of our actions and key messages as each of them may want something different from you, and as sales people we need to know who we are working with. For instance, you may use ‘client’ for the retailer and ‘consumer’ for the end user to keep roles and communication clear. Marketing and advertising agencies use the term ’client’ for their direct customers since marketers also have to refer to the consumers of the client’s products.

So where does ‘member’ feature?

Some businesses, often retailers, use ‘member’ to distinguish between those who buy regularly from them compared to those who do not. They want to set up memberships so as to attract and retain regular users of their products/services and reward them with greater benefits or discounts so they keep coming back. It’s a way of building up your database to build a tribe of followers or a community of users or supporters which, if done correctly, can make future sales that much easier to attain. Retailers often have membership cards and reward programs for regular purchasers of their products or services. There are usually benefits and special privileges to being a ‘member’ but essentially a member is a ‘customer’, ‘end user’ or ‘consumer’ of your business. This means you can have customers and members in the same business.

When having ‘members’ can be a problem for sales growth

To avoid any challenges, you need to make sure that before you embark on a ‘membership’ program there are very clear definitions and actions in place that distinguish membership from customers. However, do not make the mistake of thinking once a person is a ‘member’ that you do not have to sell.

We are seeing a trend in some businesses who claim to be there for their ‘members’ or ‘member associations’ dissociating themselves from the function of ‘selling’ when their members are customers.

Because these people choose to be ‘members’ of these businesses there is an expectation of being kept informed of the latest trends, best buys or ‘right’ options for them, or why would you bother being a member. You expect the membership team to keep in touch with you and to help you make good ‘buying’ choices and decisions. You trust them to offer products and services that meet your needs. After all, they should know your current preferences and buying patterns. Members expect to deal with people who are skilful in client centric consultative sales practices even if they do not know to call it that.

However, when speaking to some of these membership businesses we find a deep reluctance to acknowledge and admit that the skills they want their membership teams to be competent in, such as prospecting and client centric consultative sales communication practices, are indeed selling skills.

By denying this practical reality, member organisations can end up developing teams who are reactive, passive and reluctant to engage in proactive, problem solving, solution based interactions with members. The number of membership based businesses that swear that being a member and a customer are mutually exclusive, are fooling themselves and are doing a disservice to themselves and their members. By telling their people “we are not sales people, we do not use the word selling, we have members” creates cultural and competency issues.

I am happy for people to call their ‘end users’ members, patients, guests, donors, patrons, subscribers, customers or clients as long as they recognise that serving the end user of buyers of your products and services properly means employing ethical, consultative selling skills and processes if you mean to exchange something of value i.e. money for your products or services.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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We want more than a script

July 13, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Customer Service, Prospecting, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Tips

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of sales people around the world use sales scripts. Used properly, sales scripts act as scaffolding or bridgework to earn us the right to have a meaningful discussion with our prospecting customers, members, donors or subscribers. The sales script is a well constructed set of guidelines that support us when we prospect.

Good sales scripts:

are purposeful – have a clear reason why you are calling someone;
use language the customer understands;
are designed for the benefit of the listener with it always being “the prospects choice” to accept or reject what they hear;
are brief and allow for questions and conversations;
aim to achieve a result – an appointment, donation, purchase, feedback, etc;
are planned not canned –they are flexible, allowing the sales person to adapt to the different needs or queries of the prospect whilst maintaining the integrity of the call’s purpose;
leave the prospect feeling valued and informed, even if they choose not to proceed with you in this instance; and,
are pleasant, respectful and engaging.

However, too many organisations push sales scripting too far creating word-for-word scripts that end up being stilted and clumsy at best and one-sided and ineffectual at worst. We had an experience recently with a telecommunications firm whose telephone sales and service people seemed unable to deviate from a scripted response as the responses they gave us had nothing to do with our issue. The impression this gave us was that our issue wasn’t even heard let alone acted upon – it didn’t fit their script. The number of times we had to request information to check that our matter would be dealt with made the whole experience cumbersome, time consuming and very frustrating. We ended up doing all the work, while the telephone sales and service person simply read from a script, which, as it turns out, could not account for our matter in its design.

Sales scripts are not meant to be regurgitated word for word with no deviation, nor are they meant to be a one-sided affair. This type of approach is called ‘canned’ scripting. You would think that in this day and age we would have ditched these ‘canned scripts’ but they still happen.

The Cluetrain Manifesto (a resulting force that rose out of the discontentment people experience with businesses and how they fail to communicate with people) really nails it when it says:

“Learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about ‘listening to customers’. They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf. While many such people already work for companies today, most companies ignore their ability to deliver genuine knowledge, opting instead to crank out sterile happy talk that insults the intelligence of markets literally too smart to buy it.”

Building on this and taking the canned script one step further, some companies and political parties have even ditched the live person on the other end of the phone and opted for a recording instead. And this is supposed to engage us? This is free-to-air television advertising or junk mail in disguise. At least with television we can choose what we watch and we can put a ‘no junk mail’ sign on our letter box but getting ‘canned’ advertising over the phone takes the biscuit in my opinion. Yes there is the ‘do not call’ register which you can sign up to, however resorting to ‘recorded messages’ is lazy and only serves to create more angst in the already heated area of telemarketing.

If done properly, telephone sales is a very effective way of getting in contact with legitimate prospects. But when scripting removes the ability to genuinely listen and respond to a customer, we all suffer.

If you want to create positive and memorable experiences for your customers, members, donors or subscribers then seek to engage with them in a meaningful way. Don’t force your sales people to be rooted to the spot and limited by a one-size-fits all script. Trust your team to engage with people in meaningful ways by giving them the guidelines and tools they need to communicate effectively with the wide variety of people they encounter on a daily basis. The autonomy this gives your people puts back interest and challenge in the task of making effective prospecting calls and in the process might make the customers, members, donors or subscribers’ experience that much better.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Is internal competition eating away at your sales results?

July 1, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Culture, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Talent, Self Development, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Value Creation

Many sales cultures are traditionally based on respect for authority, status and success, and encouraging competitive, challenging and achievement-oriented atmospheres. Although this is not true for all businesses, especially in the 21st Century! There are a growing number of businesses adopting more collegiate, lead team approaches. However, despite different types of cultures, sales performance and results are usually derived from the efforts of individuals. Harnessing those individual efforts to achieve synergy (the sum is greater than its individual parts) is a key task of management, yet so many get it wrong. Let’s take a look at one case study and see why.

What is wrong with the following scenario?

Sales team has great products and service proposition and is part of an international business
Sales team is made up of individuals who are measured on achievement of individual sales targets
Each sales person is given a base retainer but earns the vast majority of their income on commissions made from sales converted
There are a couple of high achieving sales performers, some average performers and some new sales people yet to prove themselves
Annual staff turnover of sales staff has been about 30-40%
Average tenure is 18 months
The sales team is a state team all working in the same city
Sales performance is purely measured on sales revenue results
Sales League Tables are on public display showing who is ‘top sales dog’ each week
The sales culture is based on respect for authority, status, success and competition
The workplace atmosphere is competitive, challenging and achievement-oriented
The sales people do NOT work to specific territories/markets or customer segments to manage and grow, instead it is ‘first in best dressed’
The competitive environment encourages sales people to fight over leads that come into the business leading to ‘bullying’ tactics, attempts to ‘outdo’ each other, squabbling and fighting over who got to that client first
Sales people ‘sand bag’ lists of clients just to make sure that the other sales people do not get them even if they themselves are not working on those leads at present
Management provide no selling skills training, no sales coaching, no sales support, no CRM, no documented sales strategy nor a ‘go-to-market’ plan
There are no formal sales management practices in place except for the weekly sales meeting which deteriorates into an ‘I’m better than you are’ bun fight

This is an example of lazy and ineffectual management. Only focused on outcomes with no regard for strategy, team structure, performance quality, clear leadership, staff retention, values or culture, this sales team is not geared for high performance and continues to lag behind its true potential.

Why create competition where it doesn’t need to be?

Why make selling harder than it needs to be?

‘Old school’ sales management said that you had to have sales people competing with each other or they wouldn’t sell. You weren’t a legitimate sales team if you didn’t have league tables. They said that internal competition would motivate people to sell more. Well they are wrong. The scenario above is not uncommon. It reflects an actual real life situation – happening right now.

This archaic approach doesn’t work. It’s outdated and old fashioned. If you want to generate real sales growth, try harnessing the energy, talent and ambitions of your sales people in a constructive way where they can all achieve their individual goals along with those of the company without trying to ‘kill’ each other in the process. Remember the old saying ‘a team of champions will not beat a champion team’?

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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How do you create future sales superstars?

June 23, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Culture, Sales Assessments, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Value Creation

How many of us entered our sales careers with our eyes wide open? Fully aware of what it takes to be an effective sales person – ably resourced with the tools, processes, plans and support essential to our success. Knowing full well what you were getting yourself into.

For most, if not all of us, our initiation into sales was nothing like this, and was cushioned with little or none of these luxuries. Does the analogy “sink or swim” resonate with anyone?

All of this makes the story I am about to share quite unique and refreshing. Recently, some rather clever and farsighted managers gave some very fortunate young people the opportunity to get a large glimpse into the world of selling.

Here is their story: Two senior managers from one company, both whom I have known and worked with for many years, had the presence of mind and foresight to think ahead and tap into the desire of some of their younger staff to advance their careers.

Their business is in the industrial equipment market where they sell new equipment, spare parts, service and rentals. Recently, they advertised for a new service sales person and received, amongst others, applications from several of their internal service technicians.

The senior managers took these applications very seriously. However, they could not appoint any of their internal applicants because they had no experience and very little idea about what it takes to be an effective sales person. Thinking about the future of their business, staff retention and the desire of these young people to advance their careers, the senior managers took it upon themselves to give these driven and ambitious staff the opportunity to really understand what selling is all about – so that they could one day go in into a sales role with their eyes wide open.

This is where Barrett came in. In discussion with the managers, we developed a one day session where these young participants explored topics like:

Why sales matters
The changing face of customers and what they really want
Ethics in selling
Missed and lost opportunities
Critical success factors, and key qualities of the 21st century sales performers
Olympics Game – our sales fitness and simulation exercise which tests peoples’ natural sales capabilities and gives them real time feedback
The sales essentials overview:

5 step sales planning process
4 step sales prospecting process
7 step sales communication process

Skills you can apply NOW to build your steps to being a sales performer

As part of the session, we pointed out that even if they were not currently in a sales role, there were still numerous, valuable things they could take from the session and apply immediately in their current roles. Skills, knowledge and insight that would (and did) serve them, their customers and the company well right now, as well as lay the foundation for when the time comes for them to knowingly and willingly step into a sales role. Things like:

Knowing, understanding, communicating and modeling the vision, key message and promise, values and customer service ethic of the business
Knowing how to make effective phone calls to clients, etc. – being clear about the purpose of their calls and how to position themselves confidently (this relates to how to make prospecting phone calls)
Recognising and understanding different communication styles and how not to confuse different with difficult
Knowing how to ask good questions to clarify and verify their understanding.

What was most impressive was the prolific note taking, questioning and genuine interest in really getting a handle on what it takes to be a great sales person. For me it was one of the most enjoyable and inspiring days I have had in a long time. There is nothing like working with people who really want to be there and be their best.

All the people I have shared this story with in the last month have all expressed the same wish – that they had had the chance to experience such a session before they became a sales person.

All credit to Cameron and Mick for having the wisdom to provide this opportunity to their team. I am sure that the benefits will be varied, significant and long-lasting.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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Culture Fit

June 16, 2010 in Attitudes & Behaviours, Culture, Ethics & Values, Sales Leadership, Strategy, Value Creation

Culture Fit was voted by you as the number 6 Sales Trend for 2010. What is Culture Fit? Well the first place you are likely to hear about Culture Fit is when you are recruiting for new staff or being recruited yourself. For instance, Culture Fit Interviews differ from Behavioural Interviews, in that the Behavioural Interview attempts to find out about the candidate’s behaviour, skills, knowledge and experience. Culture Fit Interviews generally do not try to determine the individual’s capability, but rather considers the candidate’s ‘cultural fit’ with the organisation, their values and motivators.

Values, motives, codes of conduct and organisational charters are now on the main agenda. More and more managers, sales people and the broader workforce are making value judgments and career choices based more heavily on values, ethics and work practices, rather than just the roles themselves. The phrase ‘you hire on skill and fire on fit’ has never been truer, however it’s not just the employer firing on ‘fit’. Employees and customers are doing the same. If there is misalignment around core values and codes of conduct, employees and customers are just as likely to fire the organisation and go elsewhere for a better ‘fit’.

Culture Fit is usually considered as an internal organisational matter, however I propose that Culture Fit has now migrated to the main world stage with our organisational and corporate values and conduct being scruitinised on every level by our customers, constituents, members, suppliers, employees and communities. It is now a brand, sales and customer matter with ethical and moral consequences. Many of us are asking:

•   What is our purpose for being in business?
•   What are our core values?
•   What is our promise to our customers?
•   Is our promise aligned with our core values and actions?
•   What value do we create for others beyond the product?
•   Are we proud to work here?
•   How do we behave in times of crisis?
•   What do we expect from our suppliers, partners, etc.?
•   How do we want our leaders (business, political, community, etc.) to behave?
•   Who would we be proud to be associated with?

These are just some of the questions that are likely to knock loudly on our collective doors in 2010 and beyond.

Why? Because organisations everywhere are undergoing breathtaking changes! Their products are changing. Their markets are changing. Their management philosophies are changing. Their values are changing. Their focus is changing. And most importantly, their customers’ views on what is ‘true value’ are changing.

Now, more than ever before the accepted ways of doing business are shifting. Old institutions are crashing and dying. Trusted names of yesterday will not live to see the future. Many have failed to keep pace with changing consumer and community demands, values and needs. Many business CEOs and their management teams have missed the opportunity and pressing need to account for a quadruple bottom line:

1.   Purpose
2.   People
3.   Profit
4.   Planet

Hanging onto the past, they are blinded by leadership nearsightedness — often acting wildly when their status is threatened. The current disaster that is BP’s environmental oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico is a case in point. This environmental catastrophe has now blown up beyond all proportions. Beside the communities and ecosystems severely affected by this tragedy, BP is now fighting for survival, the entire oil industry is under scrutiny for their poor safety and disaster management plans, and the credibility of big business leadership has been severely eroded as we witness blame shifting, self serving game playing, indecision, narcissism and quite frankly, gutless and pathetic attempts to distance themselves from the issue at hand. Which leadership and business management schools did these CEOs attend? If this is what they are teaching our leaders we are in big trouble.

For instance, Tony Hayward’s, the CEO of BP, response recently to the oil disaster: “We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused to their lives. There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do, I’d like my life back” just shows you how vulnerable any organization is to misaligned values, self serving motives, poor choices and weak leadership.

Just imagine saying something similar to an unhappy customer – you would be laughed off the phone. Tony, you have failed miserably in Customer Service 101 –’ handling difficult situations’ and so have most of your high powered colleagues in this instance.

No wonder these and other organisations are left wondering where their customers and profits are going. This leaves them weak and vulnerable. It begs the question ‘Did the dinosaurs hear the asteroid coming?’

One of my trusted mentors, Neville Christie, says that in the 21st Century, the role of the CEO is a dual purpose role:

1) Chief Philosopher, and
2) Chief Salesperson/Storyteller.

There is recognition that a clear promise, code of conduct or charter, and accompanying message to markets and the broader community is critical for organizations of all persuasions, and only the leaders and their employees can bring this to life. Savvy leaders and organisations will not just ‘talk the talk’; they will ‘walk the talk’ and show the way forward.

In the words of one Senior Leader, “Don’t ask me what I value and stand for; ask the people who work for me. They’ll tell you what I really stand for and then you’ll know if I am true to my word.” In fact, we can take this one step further. In this increasingly transparent world, we can witness for ourselves what the leaders of businesses, political parties, communities, and other organizations stand for – plain and simple.

Making your philosophy, values, team charter and steps for action crystal clear for everyone to witness will be key when recruiting, training, managing, and leading teams and when we engage with our customers and communities in 2010 and beyond. Being transparent, honest and engaging in real conversations will need to be top of mind. Make no bones about it, whether you know it or not and whether you like it or not, you and your organisation are on show like never before and employees, customers and communities alike are asking these questions on a daily basis. They are checking for ‘culture fit’.

Remember everybody lives by selling something.

Author: Sue Barrett, www.barrett.com.au

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