For years in my early career in retail it was drilled into me on a daily (if not hourly) basis that the key to being successful in sales was to have exceptional customer service levels, why, because people are comfortable buying from people that are polite, courteous and care about their needs.  Today as a consumer I will not tolerate bad customer service even if the price is great (from a Scotsman that’s saying something!) I’d rather walk out than pay them the money, but if I get good customer service and they have what I need, I will go back to that business first if I need something similar.

Question:  If I walk away from a business because their service is appalling and go off to their competition and purchase from them, how then can it be said that customer service should not be considered as a distinguishing factor between businesses?

Another Question:  Am I the only person out there that thinks this way?  Are you happy to hand money over to people that quite frankly don’t care?  Please let me know I’m curious to find out if I am a dying species!!

How do you Improve Customer Service?

From my many years in retail and other service industries I have come to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly …. feel free to argue this point!) that you cannot train your staff in customer service, you can train them in selling skills, you can train them to communicate effectively but customer service comes from within, an individual has to want to help a complete stranger; they have to haven an attitude like “I’ll do whatever I can to help you with your requirements” .  We aren’t all natural do gooders, not all of us spring out of bed in the morning and say “I wonder who I can help today..”, this is why I believe great customer service in a business is a culture.  It is an infectious belief from the business owner or CEO that through constant reinforcement and through example influences the beliefs and attitudes of the rest of the people in the organisation.  A classic example that springs to mind is Virgin Air, led for years by Richard Branson, he has managed to grow his business world wide, but no matter where you are in the world the staff have an overwhelming need to satisfy their customers, that whole culture has been developed by one man’s vision, passion and belief.

When I talk about customer service I am talking both internal and external business customers, internal customers being other people within your business maybe from another department, it could also refer to your suppliers and contractors; external is anyone else who comes in contact with your business to help them find a solution to their needs.

If you start a culture of respecting and doing whatever you can for each other within your business then this attitude can only flow through to your customers which will manifest itself in great customer service.

... of course you can sell ice to Eskimos ...

I know what you’re thinking this is just a simple plug for my Sales Training courses, and yes I admit whole heartedly there is a potential connection (feel free to make that connection ) but on a serious note I hear all to often of companies big and small not doing the basics when it comes to sales and customer retention and because of that I feel the need to part with some general advice and things for your to think about.

Sales Techniques

There is enough information out there to sink the titanic regarding how to sell something and what you are about to read is not going to re-write the book, but I want to remind all you business out there that whether you have a full sales team or whether you are a one man band peddling your wears these techniques still apply!!

• Opening the Sales Process – First impressions count, our brains are such powerful mechanisms that they can asses a person, situation, object in as little as 3 seconds and by 20 seconds the brain will have decided what type of person it is looking at, are they a threat or not, is the situation itself hostile or safe and is the object being observed look as if it will harm me or benefit me.  That is why you have such a limited window of opportunity to make that right impression, if successful you will be off to a great start, if not you’d be as well going home!!

• Identifying needs not wants – One of the hardest part of the sales process (next to closing the sale) is to properly identify exactly what it is your customer needs. What is the real reason for them to come and see you, how do you stop yourself making assumptions about your customer, can you distinguish the difference between what your customer wants as opposed to what they need or are they one of the same thing, you get this right and the sale will be all but secured.
• Add on Sales –  It is more cost effective for any business to sell more than one product at any one time as the business only has to pay for the one sales process. If done correctly you may be helping your customer too!
• Closing the Sale – For many professionals who are not in the sales industry this part of the selling process tends to be the most difficult, asking someone for the business.  This can be made less daunting especially if you know what type of buying signals to look out for, for example if the customer continually agrees with what you are saying, they may start inquiring about other products that go with the main item, they may ask about warranties and they may even take their wallet out!!  Read the signs and take appropriate action immediately.

There are other process that go on during a sale but get the basics above right and you’ll find you and your team will convert more and more sales, once you have the customer you then need to look after them but more about that on my next blog.  Happy selling

I don’t know how many times I here a business owner or manager say “if it wasn’t for the staff this job would be great”, like it or not most of us need staff to complete the work we do for our customers.  Generally speaking the type of business owner or manager that comes out with a comment like this usually struggles with the concept and the importance of motivating staff.  Think back to a time when you were happy in your job, that may be now or it may have been in a previous job but ask yourself what type of environment did you work in?  Did you have a great boss?  Did you have a genuine interest in what you were doing?  What were your colleagues like, were they more like friends?  Did you have a better salary?

Toys are what makes me tick!!

I’m going to stick my neck out on the proverbial chopping block and say that you will have positive responses to all these questions except the last, the pay, thus we break the greatest assumption that money buys happiness in the work place.

Let me give you a couple of example of what I’m trying to get at; other than what I am doing now, my best job was when I was 17 years old, I worked for a sports retailer on a government scheme designed to get school leavers into work, the money was terrible (I was on 50 pence (UK) an hour even in that day it was very poor, so why do I look on it with fondness?

Firstly I had a great manager, Andy Croney, I still remember his name, he was good at managing the store but he kept the atmosphere a happy one, I received a lot of training both in sales and product knowledge which allowed me to develop very quickly, we had a small team but a great team, the dynamics worked well between us which flowed into a good social group out of work.  My manager left and his replacement Kenny Donaldson took up where Andy left off and continued in a similar management style, Kenny was a bit more adventurous in some of his methods of stock management which very much rubbed off on me, because of my rate of development Kenny shortlisted me for management training (age 18), I was accepted and within a year was managing my first store.

One of the worst jobs I had was my previous one, the pay was obviously significantly better, but there was no personal development, my manager was never around to pass on his wisdom and advice, I was left to my own devices in an office which surrounded me with staff that had been there for years and never stopped complaining, my bonuses were good but it did nothing to stop me feeling insecure and unhappy in my job.

When it comes to staff it is essential that the business owner of manager understands what motivates in and outside work, this information can be used to devise incentives, it may be used to help develop them further within the business, it will lead to a happier work place, increased sales and a lower staff turnover thus costs to the business.

Let me be very clear about something, the manager or business owner that thinks giving a staff a pay rise is the best way to motivate them, is wrong, a pay rise is only good for about one month, why, because the vast majority of us adjust our life style to suit our means and once that adjustment has been made the novelty of the pay rise disappears.

In my experience the best way to keep your staff motivated is to identify what makes them tick, is it money, do they have a specific interest, do they want rise through the ranks in your company, maybe they are about to buy a house (stability of job may be the key motivator), may be they are about to start a family (flexible hours may be their key motivator), what ever it is there is a duty to all managers and business owners to find out what they key motivator is.  Once it is identified then training programs, incentive schemes, working hours and general work conditions can be refined to ensure your staff are happy and motivated and most importantly loyal.

Want to know learn more about techniques to motivate your staff …………..

Unique to Dave Sewell Training & Support for Retail & Small Business are a series of management training courses designed to be held at your work premises, each lasting no more than one hour and collectively are designed to take your staff through a broad understanding of management  processes, giving them tips and skills to ensure they can maximise the general operation of your business; Motivating Employees is the seventh of eight modules taking your staff through that process.

Want to know more, contact me for more information and a free consult to discuss your business’s potential needs.

Time Management is the art / skill to make the most of every minute of every day; by prioritising what needs to be done to generate success; the ultimate Time Manager will strive to ensure every minute of their day is a productive minute.

Time management in the working environment is all about focusing all your available resources in proactive activity to ensure the continued success of your business and minimising down time and non productive activity. It is readily accepted that many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little, because they are not concentrating their effort on the things that matter the most. This is nicely summed up in the Pareto Principal or the 80:20 Rule. This says that typically 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results; which means the remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort. The ratio may vary but this broad pattern of a small proportion of activity generating non-scalar returns recurs so frequently that it is the norm in many situation.

By applying the time management tips and skills you can optimise your effort to ensure that you concentrate as much of your time and energy as possible on the high pay off tasks. This ensures that you achieve the greatest benefit possible with the limited amount of time available to you.

Want to know learn more about effective time management …………..

Unique to Dave Sewell Training & Support for Retail & Small Business are a series of management training courses designed to be held at your work premises, each lasting no more than one hour and collectively are designed to take your staff through a broad understanding of management  processes, giving them tips and skills to ensure they can maximise the general operation of your business; Time Management is the sixth of eight modules taking your staff through that process.

Want to know more, contact me for more information and a free consult to discuss your business’s potential needs.

Before I get into this subject let me ask you something, how much time and effort is required by you to secure the work of a new customer?  Now think how much time and effort does it require to secure the work from an existing customer?  I am going to stick my neck out here and tell you that your existing customer takes far less time and effort than a new one, right?

Why is this?  The answer is quite simple, your existing clients already know you and if they are coming back to you theyalso trust you.  They also have a very good idea of what you do, what your products are like and what level of service they can expect for their money all of which a new customer must try and establish before that first purchase.

So if this is the case why should I farm them?  What is farming anyway, I hope I don’t need a pair of gum boots!!

Farming is all about building and maintaining a good healthy relationship with your customer to ensure you are up to date with their business needs and just as important, they are up to date with your products and services.  Generally speaking a well informed customer is a happy customer; a happy customer is a loyal customer and that is the holy grail of business, having a base full of happy loyal customers.

So what is farming?  Let me give you a literal example:

• First we plough the fields (we identify the customer).
• We sow the seeds (we introduce our product / service).
• We nurture and grow the crop (we build the rapport and relationship and identify exactly how we can help their business)
• We harvest the crop (we complete the sale).
• We plough the fields again (we continue to provide great service & support).
• We sow the seeds (we continually update them with new products / promotions).
• We nurture and grow (we continue to see how we can help their business).
• We harvest the crop (we complete another sale).
• We plough the fields again (we continue to provide great service & support).

…. and so the cycle continues.

How do we farm the Client Base?

As a small business there are some very cost effective ways of farming your client base, here are a few to get you thinking:

1.  Visit – the best way you can farm your base is to visit your customers, some will require appointments others will be happy that you called in to see them. When you do this always have an objective, something you want to talk about or promote. Go to the meeting prepared, ask them how your product / service as been helping their business, find out if there is anything else you can help them with then talk about your reason for calling.

2.  Newsletter – A regular newsletter can help keep what your business is doing and the introduction of new products and services under the nose of the customer, this isn’t as effective as the visit because at best the wrong people can get the newsletter at worst no one reads it and it gets thrown out (or if it’s email, deleted).

3.  Blogging – Lets you have your say about many things affecting your industry allowing you to project the reputation as being an expert, but unless your clients have subscribed to your feeds or regularly visit your site, often your messages will be missed.

4.  Entertainment - Have a social gathering, probably the most expensive option of the four, but very good for communicating to a captive audience and can be great for getting referrals especially if you ask them to bring along one of their associates.  Golf competitions, work dinners, inviting key clients to a charity functions, the options are limitless and restricted only by your imagination or your budget.

Whatever you do, it makes absolute business sense to farm your client base, you have a captured loyal base that is easy to approach, that’s exactly the type of environment that leads to great sales. If you don’t have a plan to do this then take the time and start mapping out which clients you will see first, tackle the ones that give you the most business now and then approach the others at a later date. If need be prioritise them in dollar terms, those who spend the most should command more of your time.

This article compliments my sales training module on Farming your Clients, the module is designed so that it wont last longer than one hour, ensuring it will not disrupt the average small businesses working day.  Please feel free to contact me regarding this course or other courses that I run.

There are certain rules to delegating that you need to think about:

• Am I the right person for the job?
• Who is the right person for the job?
• How much is that person doing already?
• Can I train a lesser skilled person to do this job?
• Will I have time to evaluate the job?

Delegating is about better utilising your resources to improve efficiencies within your business, it should not be used so you the business owner / manager can have time off.

By choosing the right person for the right job whilst ensuring they have the time to carry out the extra task you will find more can be done and your stress levels will not need to go through the roof during the process!!

Want to know learn more about effective delegation …………..

Unique to Dave Sewell Training & Support for Retail & Small Business are a series of management training courses designed to be held at your work premises, each lasting no more than one hour and collectively are designed to take your staff through a broad understanding of management  processes, giving them tips and skills to ensure they can maximise the general operation of your business; Delegating – It gets Work Done! is the fifth of eight modules taking your staff through that process.

Want to know more, contact me for more information and a free consult to discuss your business’s potential needs.

So much technology, how should we communicate?

The art of getting the message across effectively is a vital part of being successful, whether you are a sales person, a manager or a business owner.  Whether you want to make a presentation with confidence or close a sale communicating clearly and confidently will help you get the result you need.  Communicating is not just about making sure someone understands you when you talk to them it is about ensuring the content of the communication is relevant, it’s about how the communication is delivered, for example is it delivered as an order or as a request and it’s also about which tools are appropriate to deliver the communication.

Being Effective

Effective communication (and therefore effective business) hinges on people understanding your meaning, and replying in terms that move the exchange forward – preferably in the direction you would like it to go.  Communicating is always a two way process.  In management, you communicate to get things done, pass on and obtain information, reach decisions, achieve joint understanding and develop relationships; in sales, you communicate to find out about your customers needs, you explain the choices they have, you reach agreement suitable to both parties and you confirm the contract.

Recognising Barriers

There are always at least two parties involved in any communication, each of whom may have different wants, needs and attitudes.  These wants and needs can present barriers if they conflict with those of the other party and such barriers may stop you conveying or receiving the right message.  Any communciation must overcome such barriers if it is to be successful and the first step is to recognise that they exist.  Breaking down barriers is one of the first steps towards good communication.  Here are one or two things to keep in mind:

1. Facing the person you are talking to shows you are not afraid to listen to what is said.
2. Tilting your head slightly shows you are listening.
3. Look the other person in the eye lets them know they have your undivided attention.
4. Break down barriers by adopting the other person’s pose and actions.
5. Always, always make sure your cell phone is switched off, if it isn’t apologise if it goes off, silence it and ignore it.

Achieving Clarity

The three rules that govern good communication are all associated with clarity:

1. Be clear in your own mind about what you want to communicate.
2. Deliver the message succinctly.
3. Ensure that the message has been clearly and correctly understood.

Good communication means saying what you mean and fully comprehending any feedback.

Choosing a Method

It is essential when communicating a message that you give serious thought to the medium you choose.  For many this choice is between the spoken and the written word.  If you decide that you want speed and convenience, you may well choose speech as the best form of communication.  Alternatively you may want something more permanent and orderly – a typed document, for example, will attract a more considered reply.  Electronic media have generated more possibilities by creating a hybrid form of speech and writing.  Thus emails have the speed and the informality of speech yet they are in letter form and can be filed.  The purpose of the message will dictate which method you use, some of the methods to think about may be (and the list is certainly not definitive!)

• Email – ideal for speed with the ability to be saved and filed.
• Letter – ideal if a more formal approach is required (documents that require signatures) or for sending invoices.
• Website – Ideal for getting one or many specific messages to your chosen market place.
• Video – A very powerful way of communicating to mass audiences using internet sites like YouTube; ideal for getting more visually detailed messages to the market place.
• Presentations - delivered in person is a great way to communicate your message with a more personal touch allowing your audience to clarify the message instantly.

There is a lot more to communicating that what I have written here, but if you can get these basics right it will go a long way to helping you in both your career and your personal life.  My training module on Communication is based around fun practical exercise that really hits these points home, the module is designed so that it wont last longer than one hour, ensuring it will not disrupt the average small businesses working day.

Please feel free to contact me regarding this course or other courses that I run.

What is a SWOT Analysis?

A S.W.O.T analysis looks at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of any subject within the business.  Too often a business owner / manager will use a SWOT analysis in their core product only; if your business is selling fizzy drinks then generally you will only conduct a SWOT analysis on your fizzy drink but a SWOT analysis can also be used for your business location, your staff as a whole, your competition, individual staff members in relation to the team and of course this list is not difinitive.   SWOT analysis can be and should be used across many parts of the business to help identify and promote it’s strengths whilst identifying and then addressing it’s weaknesses.

Referring back to my blog “Identifying Unique Selling Points” I use the SWOT analysis to help develop the key message any business wants to send to it’s chosen market.  As part of this process I identify the business strengths and it’s opportunities with regards to selling into specific markets and combine that with the business Unique Selling Point (USP) and the image the business wants to portray it can create a very strong message designed for it’s target market.  Once this message is created it can then form the foundations of everything else the business does regarding marketing itself.

Without your customers spreading the word about how good your product / service is, you will ultimately have to spend more to get that very same message to the market place or you will cease to trade.

It is one of the main reasons why you continue to farm your clients to ensure that the relationship you have with them is strong enough and friendly enough to produce good quality referrals for your business.

So how do you get these referrals?  There are a number of ways of gaining referrals from your clients from asking the question directly to providing them with incentives some will work better than others depending on your industry, Quality Referrals training looks at your industry specifically and provides solutions that will work for you.

“This is what I need for my team buy it’s too expensive to send my staff on training courses, I can’t afford to have them off the job”

Unique to Dave Sewell Training & Support for Retail & Small Business are a series of courses designed to be held at your work premises, each lasting no more than one hour and collectively are designed to take your staff through the entire sales process, giving them tips and skills to ensure they can maximise each potential sale; Quality Referrals is the fifth of seven modules taking your staff through the sales process.

Want to know more, contact me for more information and a free consult to discuss your business’s potential needs.

I spent my entire career trying to give all my customers excellent service with products that more than meet their needs, I have helped businesses in more recent years do exactly the same thing, but in all that time I have never met an individual / company pull off everything exceptionally well that left me looking for an excuse to go back for more …….. until now!!

Recently my wife gave birth to a baby boy, Lachlan, one week before our first wedding anniversary and three weeks before my wife’s birthday.  I try to be a bit of a romantic for occasions such as anniversaries and birthdays but I was thinking this year there is just no way we were going to be dining at any swanky restaurant or jetting off for a weekend away  so then I got to thinking ……………. “if I can’t get my wife to the restaurant, I’ll get the restaurant to come to our house!”.  I looked in the yellow pages, I tried Google, I tried several online business directories but I couldn’t find anything, the closest I got was a company pre-making the meals so all I had to do was heat them up ……… hmmm not quite what I had in mind, I could pull out something from the freezer and cut out the middle man if I was going to go down that line!!

The sauce was a secret but it was incredible

I was just about getting to the point of giving up when I spoke to one of our friends from our anti-natal class about my little dilemma and low and behold did they not know someone that did just what I was looking for, usually for groups of 10 -12 but she does small parties from time to time!!  They sent this lady, Marie our contact details to which she promptly emailed us with some suggestions, to cut a long story short after swapping some emails we had the menu sorted, cost per head agreed and the date booked … my wife’s birthday, to make it a little bit more special I also invited our friends along from the anti-natal class as they also had a new born son, so would be able to relax in our home with our boys and neither couple would have to worry about them crying etc.

The evening came, Marie turns up with EVERYTHING, including plates and pans, within 30 minutes of her arrival we were sitting around the dinning table tucking into our breads and dips, and boy were the dips amazing, not sure exactly what was in them (Marie could tell us but she’d have to kill us!!) but what a way to start the meal.  Then came the main course of steak (for the boys) and salmon (for the girls), all the dishes were cooked to perfection, the salmon had the most amazing sauce with it, we asked what it was (again Marie was going to kill us, so we asked no more!!), now this is where Marie went the extra mile, on starting our main course Lachlan decided to get a bit grumpy, Marie picked him up from his bed and calmed him down letting his parents continue with their meal, again awesome!!

On to deserts now and what a finale, heart-shaped berried ice-cream atop a chocolate and chai scented biscuit base, drizzled with honeycomb chocolate topping and served with a berry jus; does your mouth not water just reading that, again awesome and as we were tucking into our deserts, Marie cleaned the kitchen, packed up everything into her car and left, it was as if she had never been at our house (other than the fact we just had a meal to die for!!).

My wife and I along with our guests had such a relaxing night (considering there was two children in the house only about a month old!!), it’s something I will be raving about for a very long time to come.  What a great product, a restaurant quality meal in your home (the food was to die for) with no cleaning up to do, great service (yes Marie served for meal to us at the table), friendly and well priced.

If you are in Christchurch, want to celebrate something special but can’t or don’t want to go out, get in touch with Marie you wont be dissappointed!!

Marie’s company is called EmJay Catering and her email address is mariejenkins@xtra.co.nz