85 T he slow economy has companies scrambling to find more-profitable customers. As sales continue to move at a snail’s pace, CFOs are pushing budget cuts as a top prior- ity. In the struggle to regain lost ground, many companies make one major mistake: They fail to improve customer relationships. According to Gartner Dataquest, worldwide customer-relationship-management spending on software and services reached $23 billion in 2000. Ideally, this huge investment should deliver greater insight into customers, smoother customer communications, greater customer loy- alty, and healthier profits. However, independent research paints a different picture. Customer satisfaction has not improved. According to a CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS IN A SLOW ECONOMY 21 Copyright © 2006 by Gerhard Gschwandtner. Click here for terms of use. study by the University of Michigan Business School, be- tween 1994 and 2000 customer satisfaction declined an av- erage of 7.9 percent. Companies ignore customer behavior. Forrester Re- search Inc. found that only 23 percent of companies cur- rently improve their online operations by making use of the data associated with how customers use their Websites. A study by Broadbase Software Inc. found that 90 percent of online shoppers click to a competitor’s site if they experi- ence poor customer service. Companies fail to weed out unprofitable customers. Ac- cording to Newton, Massachusetts–based Meridien Re- search, 20 percent of a bank’s customers generate about 150 percent of unadjusted revenues. At the bottom end, about 30 percent of the customers actually drain 50 per- cent of the gains realized. But cutting the bottom end with- out analyzing customer data can backfire. For example, First Union Corporation found that what it had considered the lowest fifth of its customer base in income was actually its most profitable segment. Companies fail to boost customer loyalty. A customer loy- alty study by Deloitte Research showed that when manufac- turers set targets for retaining customers and strive to exceed loyalty goals, they are 60 percent more profitable than competitors that don’t track customer loyalty well. All that insight had little impact on this year’s trend of eroding loyalty. Carlson Marketing Group reported in its annual Re- lationship Builder survey that in 2000 four in 10 customers showed a genuine commitment to brands or companies. In 2001, that commitment has dropped to just three in 10 customers. Frederick F. Reichheld writes in his book Loy- MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES 86 alty Rules (Harvard Business School Press, 2001), “Outstand- ing loyalty is the direct result of the words and deeds—the decisions and practices—of committed top executives who have personal integrity.” This insight confirms that while CRM technology does not en- sure customer loyalty, people do. The road to recovery begins with the realization that customer expectations have gone up while the economy has declined. In the dot-com economy customers found it diffi- cult to buy, hence the decline in loyalty. Today buyers make it far more difficult to sell. The message is clear: Sales won’t improve until customer relationships improve. It’s time to return to such core principles as treating customers well and saying thank you. It’s time to return to honesty and integrity. When that happens, customer satisfaction shall again be king. MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES 87 REMINDER When the economy erodes, trust and integrity should not be mistaken for an expendable line item in the budget. This page intentionally left blank 89 R ecently I spoke with several CEOs that started their own companies. They all agreed that ideas are at the heart of selling. Sound business ideas can come from any- where. Some people have their epiphany while taking a shower, while others scribble business plans on a cocktail napkin. One woman CEO knew the exact date when the idea for her new company came to her. That idea changed her life. Ideas not only change the lives of those who find them, but also the lives of many other people. Donald Trump once told Selling Power, “There are two kinds of people—those who have good ideas and those who are good at implementing them. Normally, people with good ideas can’t implement them, and those who are good THE ROADBLOCKS TO SELLING AN IDEA 22 Copyright © 2006 by Gerhard Gschwandtner. Click here for terms of use. at implementing can’t produce a single idea.” Most CEOs agree that in order to turn a good idea into a viable business, one has to overcome four major selling challenges. First, the idea originator must be sure the idea will actually work. Many times the very act of writing down an idea will make it vanish. Most people give up in stage one only to feel a twinge of regret when they realize that someone else is making millions with an idea that they contemplated but failed to complete. Second, the idea has to be anchored in logic and sup- ported with passion. Logic and emotion are needed to sell the idea to the venture capitalist. Stage two is always a tough challenge for any entrepreneur. The venture capital market is not eager to finance a new idea unless it has a solid chance of succeeding. Third, the idea must be strong enough to persuade peo- ple to join in a collaborative effort to turn the idea into re- ality. If the original idea fails to capture the imagination of qualified talent, the idea cannot survive. Fourth, the idea must truly benefit the customer. To keep the selling cycle short, the customer has to under- stand the benefits quickly. If the idea is too complex for a short and simple presentation, the selling cycle will be too long and the cost of sales too high. Someone once said that good ideas have many fathers, while bad ideas are always orphans. A good idea fuels progress, creates jobs, increases wealth, and helps advance MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES 90 SUCCESS PRINCIPLE Ideas are the best antidote to problems. Problems are nothing but wake-up calls for creativity. society. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “He who receives an idea from me receives instruction himself without lessen- ing mine, as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me.” Not everyone can move a great idea through all four stages and only the most persistent people will succeed. Is it worth the effort? Ask any successful business leader and they will tell you that a good idea—well conceived and planned and carried through to the creation of a successful company—can truly light up the world. MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES 91 This page intentionally left blank 93 S mart salespeople know that negativity spoils sales. Most daily newspapers don’t seem to understand that negative news doesn’t sell more newspapers. Think about what you read today in your daily newspaper. Did you find information that you could use to improve your life? Did you read something that would give you a positive feeling? Did you read something that would make you pick up the phone and share with a friend? The truth is that the aver- age newspaper is barely read. As a result, most papers lose subscribers by the thousands, and every month they must spend a huge amount of money to shore up eroding circulation. ARE YOU SELLING PROBLEMS OR SOLUTIONS? 23 Copyright © 2006 by Gerhard Gschwandtner. Click here for terms of use. A number of recent studies indicate that Americans are tired of picking up newspapers that are overloaded with negative news, cynical reporting, and highly distorted im- ages of the real world. For example, research conducted by the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press found that 71 percent of Americans think the press “gets in the way of society solving its problems.” Poor journalists have a lot in common with poor sales- people. While poor salespeople tend to believe that they can make the sale if they exaggerate the positive side of their product, poor journalists tend to believe that they can im- press their customers if they exaggerate the negative side of the news. It is sad that both the poor journalist and the poor salesperson are completely unaware of how their pro- fessional malpractice affects their customers. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylva- nia, was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “If you cover the world cynically and assume that everybody is Machiavellian and motivated by their own self-interest, you invite your readers to reject journalism as a mode of communication because it must be cynical, too.” It does not take a Gallup Poll to know that there are more Americans looking for solutions than Americans look- ing for problems. Ask yourself: What is the ratio of prob- lems to solutions in your daily newspaper? Ten to one? A hundred to one? The truth is most readers have enough problems to handle in a 24-hour period. People all over America want practical, can-do information that they can use to build positive and productive lives. But they can’t find it in their daily papers. MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES 94 [...]... into a Sales Leader Copyright © 2006 by Gerhard Gschwandtner Click here for terms of use This page intentionally left blank 26 ARE YOU READY TO SOAR? he dream of flight has captivated mankind for thousands of years Likewise, the dream of skyrocketing sales appeals to many salespeople Yet few salespeople turn their dreams into reality A brief look at the history of aviation provides a blueprint for the. .. to stay closer to home, to travel less, to spend more time with our loved ones, to invest in real estate, or to spend a few more seconds looking into another person’s eyes The big question is what changes the Zeitgeist? History tells us that the pendulum of time keeps swinging Psychologists tell us that people who suffer disappointment tend to retreat and rediscover their true strength What feeds the. .. SALES When people read a story in The New York Times, they hardly think about what made it possible for the Times to publish 365 issues every year for the past 104 years That’s truly an astounding accomplishment when you think that the high standards Adolph Ochs set back in 1896 still hold today, more than a century later The Times’s story is the story of a family that has chosen to perpetuate Adolph Ochs’... example, the Zeitgeist in the era of Y2K was paranoia about computers crashing on Jan 1, 2000 I 101 Copyright © 2006 by Gerhard Gschwandtner Click here for terms of use MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES The Zeitgeist of the dot-com boom was marked by euphoria caused by the illusion of growth without limits It was like a pied piper that invited people to foolishly join in a happy parade celebrating greed The. . .MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES Newspaper editors need to ACTION TIP realize that balanced reportFind out what your ing means balancing the negacustomers really need, tive side of the news with and fill that need better constructive articles that dethan anybody else liver solutions, hope, and encouragement Good salespeople are eager to bring more value to their customers Good journalists... lowered the price of the paper from three cents to one penny and promised to publish the news impartially, without fear or favor.” The experts of the day were astounded Ochs added greater value with better editorial content He cut out fiction He cut stale columns He targeted the paper toward “men in business.” He also launched an illustrated Sunday magazine with half-tone photographs and further I... copies of stories that were to be published in the next morning’s paper He distributed the articles without titles and asked his audience, “What headline would you assign to this story?” After everyone took a stab at it, he proudly revealed the title as it would appear in the paper the next morning Arthur Ochs Sulzberger ran The New York Times from 1963 until 1997, growing the company from $100 million to. .. replied with of a single achievement a smile, “I noticed that the Consistent success is front page of the Science seconly attained by tion had some problems with cultivating the same the color, so I sent a note to the territory longer, better, production manager asking and more passionately her if we supplied crayons to than anybody else our readers for that edition.” 98 MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES. .. Gerhard Gschwandtner Click here for terms of use MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES set himself apart from the competition by heavily advertising the slogan “All the news that’s fit to print.” By taking the high road in quality and the low road in price, Ochs soon increased the Times’s circulation to 350,000 Arthur Ochs Sulzberger remembers how his grandfather shared his passion for publishing with... means that their actions must inspire trust For salespeople it means more genuine face -to- face contact and more handwritten thank-you notes 102 MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES instead of hastily punched out SUCCESS PRINCIPLE electronic messages Our progress does not Visionary leaders know depend so much on that the Zeitgeist is really a understanding the times composite of the past that ofwe live . with poor sales- people. While poor salespeople tend to believe that they can make the sale if they exaggerate the positive side of their product, poor journalists tend to believe that they can. lives. But they can’t find it in their daily papers. MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS OF SALES 94 Newspaper editors need to realize that balanced report- ing means balancing the nega- tive side of the news. imagination of qualified talent, the idea cannot survive. Fourth, the idea must truly benefit the customer. To keep the selling cycle short, the customer has to under- stand the benefits quickly. If the