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Category: Leadership

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Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

Effective Leaders Use Systems Thinking Not "Blame Thinking"

“I do not judge success based on championships; rather,

I judge it on how close we came to realizing our potential.”

– John Wooden

I strongly believe that leaders who want to bring out the genius of every employee and who want to optimize results (especially through customer experience and employee engagement) must be systems thinkers.[1]

Bill Walsh, the renowned National Football League coach, had an unusual belief about quarterbacks: “They are only as good as the system they played in.”

In 1970-71 while an offensive coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals, Walsh developed a passing game that enabled Virgil Carter, a below-average quarterback who up to that point had never even completed half of his passes. That system propelled Carter, the weaker quarterback, to lead the league in completion percentage at 62.2%; the system also increased his yards per completion by 24% (going from 5.9 to 7.3).

In 1979, Walsh joined the San Francisco 49ers as head coach. He used the same system he had employed in Cincinnati to propel another quarterback, Steve Deberg (who by most statistical measures was one of the NFL’s worst) from a 45.4% completion rate to an astonishing 60%. That year, Deberg ended up throwing more completions than any other quarterback in NFL history up to that point.

In the two years that followed Walsh found Joe Montana who is now known, in many circles, as the “best” quarterback in NFL history. I prefer to think that all three quarterbacks took advantage of the best system in NFL history – a system that challenged them, successfully, to reach their full potential as John Wooden suggested.

How did Walsh do it? He didn’t try to change the quarterback. Instead, he changed the system within which the quarterbacks played.

Effective leaders must understand why and how to manage their systems.  It’s about managing the system rather than trying to manage the people. The central tenet here is that “An employee is only as good as system he or she works in.” This core belief flies in the face of the typical belief held by the typical organizational culture, which, whether it is stated explicitly or not, usually holds that the performance of an individual can be measured and improved separately from the system within which he or she works. This is false.  Leaders who act with this false belief will continue to create unintended consequences which will hold back the potential of both the individuals and the entire system.  Leaders who assign blame will create fear and damage innovation. Leaders who focus on optimizing the system will bring out the genius of every employee and results beyond their expectations.

I love Dunkin Donuts Coffee. Nearly every morning I will pick up a large cup just before a client meeting and bring it into the meeting with me. I always order a large and I don’t like sugar. For years, I ordered my coffee using this process: “May I have a large, cream, no sugar.”

About 10 % of the time I would get sugar in my coffee. Since I can’t drink coffee with sugar I would have to either toss it out and be out $2.25 (and be cranky) or go back and order another. The Dunkin Donuts were always friendly about replacing the coffee; it was just a hassle to go back and replace it.

One day I ordered a coffee, got in my car. and headed to my appointment. I tasted the coffee; sure enough, it had sugar. I got angry. I decided to go back and complain loudly (at the clerk) about how they don’t seem to hire people who don’t know how to listen.

By the time I got to the store, the implications of an emotional confrontation with the store manager and the clerk gave me pause.  Perhaps my own process was not working. Why was I mentioning sugar at all if I didn’t want any sugar?

I decided at that moment to change my process. I began asking for a “Large — just cream.” In the four years that followed my new process, I have not gotten sugar in my coffee a single time. Not once!

As it turns out, our brains have a difficult time hearing a negative. If you ask someone to stop thinking about pink rabbits, they will think about pink rabbits. If you ask for no sugar, they will hear the word “sugar”.

It was the mention of sugar (the process) that caused the problem. The Dunkin Donuts worker was not the root cause. My system was the root cause. Once I changed the process the problem disappeared.  It made no sense to blame the clerk.  That was my first reaction.  That is how we have been taught to think about performance improvement.

Leaders are responsible for the system within which the employees work.  If the system is flawed it will create a high probability of dysfunction and it is the leader who has set up the system.  I was the leader of my coffee ordering process and it was my order process that caused the dysfunction of the Dunkin Donuts clerk.  Once my process was changed, the clerks I encountered performed perfectly every time.  How can one explain the perfect performance of multiple clerks at multiple stores if it is not the performance of the system?

A leader who appreciates systems will be able to recognize the real root causes of events and will spend most of their time improving the system and enrolling the employees to help improve the processes within the system.

The typical performance management process attempts to improve the individuals through feedback.  Furthermore, today organizations are requesting even more frequent feedback from managers to employees.  Is that frequent feedback about individual performance or is it about how employees can improve their processes and their interactions?  Are we systems thinkers or are we blame assigners?  To be optimally effective we must become system thinkers.

[1] Systems Thinking: Is a discipline of using data to identify patterns, processes, and structures that cause events. It’s a way of thinking and acting to obtain knowledge to make changes in process and structure to improve the interactions between the parts of a system and instead of making improvements to the parts of the system.  Excerpts taken from The Art of Leading: 3 Principles for Predictable Performance Improvement by Wally Hauck, PhD, CSP

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Growth Management Operations Skills Women In Business

Does Everyone Want a Piece of You?

Does Everyone Want a Piece of You?

Whose agenda runs your life? Yours or someone else’s? At the end of the day, do you feel you accomplished what you wanted to or is it another one of “those days”?

In the fast pace world we now live in, there are so many distractions.  Our inboxes fill up with unwanted messages and too many of the ones we do want as well. Think of how much time the dreaded “reply-to-all’ alone takes. We react to the crises that others create and are often more reactive than proactive.

The one thing we can never recapture is time. There are 28,500 days in the average person’s life if we live to 75 years old.  How many of those days do you have left? If I am depressing you then do something about it – it’s not too late.

Ask yourself what you want to do, see, or experience in your life so that at the end you will say that your life is a success. Not how other people define success, but how you do. That’s what The Big Five for Life philosophy is all about.

Ever since I learned about the Big Five for Life™, I realized that I must make time for those things that really matter to me. There is nothing more important, for example, than family and enduring relationships. If I don’t write another book summary or spend another hour at my desk it won’t matter to anyone at the end of the day so I now give myself a break.

When you are very clear about what matters, make time for those things that you want to do see or experience. Make a list at the end of every day about what you want to accomplish and if those things aren’t in alignment with your purpose or that of your organization – then don’t cheat yourself out of doing what does matter.

The best advice I can give you is live every day with purpose. Stick to your own agenda and don’t get sucked into that of others. When someone asks you to do something that is going to distract you from your purpose just let them know it’s not in your “time budget.”

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Preparing for the Unpredictable

Preparing for the Unpredictable: Tips on Crisis Management

Crisis management, in simple terms, refers to how an organization deals with disruptive, unexpected events that could potentially have a significant negative impact on the organization, its stakeholders, and the public.

No organization – start-up enterprises or long-time market leaders (think Toys “R” Us) – is immune to experiencing a crisis. With proper advance planning (because, after all, crises are usually unexpected), strong leaders are prepared to deal with the unanticipated.

There are usually three common elements to a crisis: the threat to the organization, its stakeholders and the public; the element of surprise; and the need to make decisions and take action quickly.

Successful crisis management can be implemented quickly and efficiently in three steps:

  • Risk Assessment
  • Course of Action Planning
  • Contingency Planning

The risk assessment phase begins with an analysis and prioritization of the risks that the crisis has created. The challenge here is to identify as many possible emerging risks without being overwhelmed by their potential.

Leadership needs to analyze and prioritize these risks so they can be addressed immediately or dealt with at a later date. It’s critical that leaders determine the likelihood of the risks occurring and their potential damage. With this information, leaders can prioritize risks and build them into their planning.

Next, a course of action analysis (COA) should be conducted. A COA determines what can be done to best mitigate current and minimize future risks. While it can be helpful to run “simulations” that analyze hypothetical scenarios (e.g., if ‘A’ happens, we’ll do ‘B’. If ‘C’ happens, we’ll do ‘D’), most leaders of start-ups don’t have the resources in-house to do that. Therefore the COA is often the product of staff brainstorming and discussions – which is invaluable!

The COA provides an assessment of the risks and articulates a preliminary plan for dealing with them.

The COA effort is very time intensive and must be quickly formulated. It is usually limited to two proposed courses of action and details what the most likely results will be, and what presents the greatest potential threats to the proposed courses of action.

Next, leaders must address contingency planning. It is essential to consider long and hard contingency responses should even the soundest, well-considered plan of action fail. Imagining and anticipating worst case scenarios – however unlikely they may seem – is a vital component to effective crisis management.

By rapidly accomplishing these three stages of response, the organization’s teams can be informed and engaged in the crisis management activities. This might include new training for staff as well as increased internal communication efforts.

When it comes to crisis management, there aren’t any hard and fast, silver bullet solutions. Every situation is different. What every   crisis does have in common is the leader’s need to use every resource available to quickly gather knowledge to effectively address the situation.

Leaders – whether in crisis or not – must always be learning about the organization’s operating environment and its people, which greatly helps identify potential challenges or threats. This continuous learning approach leads to greater agility and capabilities in reacting to a crisis.

Ultimately, the actions of leaders shine through in resolving any crises and mitigating the damage. A well-prepared and knowledgeable leader should have the tools available to manage a crisis rather than allowing it to spiral out of control.

Ed Brzychcy is former U.S. Army Infantry Staff-Sergeant with service across 3 combat deployments to Iraq. After his time in the military, he received his MBA from Babson College and now coaches organizational leadership and growth through his consultancy, Blue Cord Management.

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Don’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover

There’s an old proverb that says, “Outward appearances are not a reliable indication of true character.” In other words, you can’t – and shouldn’t – judge a book by its cover.

One of my favorite examples of this is from the movie Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. This classic movie from back in the 1990’s was about a wealthy man, Edward Lewis, on a business trip in Beverly Hills who falls in love with a prostitute, Vivian Ward. Edward wants Vivian to attend some of his business functions throughout the week, so he gives her some money (as in thousands of dollars) to buy some conservative, less revealing, clothes. In her “working clothes” Vivian walks into an upscale store where the employees won’t sell her anything and asks her to leave. Dejected, she returns to the hotel. The next day, the hotel manager takes her to a different store and gets her outfitted in some beautiful clothes. As she is walking back to the hotel, dressed in one of her new outfits and carrying several bags with different Beverly Hills store logos on them, she stops back into the store that asked her to leave. She asked the salesperson if she remembers her from yesterday. She reminds her, and then comes the famous line from the movie: “Big mistake. Big. Huge! I have to go shopping now.”

I experienced something similar years ago when I was looking to buy a new car. I was just 22 years old and driving an older car that had 170,000 miles on it. I’m not exaggerating! I walked into the dealership and none of the sales people would talk to me. I knew it was the car. They saw me drive up in an old car and decided I didn’t have the money to buy a new car.

The next day I went back, but this time in my father’s car, which was quite nice. This time I was approached by numerous salespeople. I had no trouble finding a sales person who wanted to sell me a car. I shared the story with the manager of the dealership, who was quite embarrassed. As a way of apologizing, he sold me a car at a fantastic price.

In business, it can be economically dangerous to make a snap judgement based on someone’s looks, what they are wearing, the car they drive and more. The founder of Walmart, Sam Walton, used to drive a pick-up truck. He didn’t look like a man who was worth billions of dollars. How many times did he “fool” people with his unassuming looks. It wasn’t intentional. It was just who he was.

Unless they prove otherwise, customers should be treated like… customers. Don’t make the mistake of judging a book by its cover. As Vivian Ward said in Pretty Woman, “Big mistake. Big. Huge!”

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

 

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Management Marketing Skills

Business Builder – A Tool to Help You Acquire More Customers

The business builder is a chance to find out a simple strategy or technique to acquire more customers, get customers to spend with you more often or get them to spend more money when they shop.

This is about creating opportunity from what otherwise would be wastage. We’ve all had opportunities where we’ve met with customers, we’ve introduced what we’d like them to buy from us and it’s been too rich for them at that period of time–too big a decision. They were interested, but couldn’t say yes at that moment in time. Typically in those scenarios, we leave with our tails between our legs and we put it away for another day to revisit in the future. You’ve all heard about how effective it can be to upsell, to add to people’s purchases, to add stuff on top, to increase the average transaction value. But what I’m talking about here is the power of a down sell, the opportunity to acquire a customer when otherwise they would have said “no”.

Let me give you an example of an incredibly effective down sell that happened with a client of mine around 12 months ago. The client in question runs a relatively new start up accountancy practice looking to acquire new customers. The key service she was looking to introduce was a high-level accountancy, non-exec financial director position, a fair sum of money, a fair size investment. She’d meet lots of people who were interested in the proposition, they would show a level of interest, maybe ask for some details to be sent or written down, and then she’d typically get a response of “I’m going to need some time to think about it.” This happens in all of our businesses.

What’s the simple thing that could’ve been introduced as a product or service to get them on board as a customer right now so we could build their value over a period of time? What she chose to introduce was some fabulous online accounting software. In fact, it’s the same accounting software that we now use ourselves, and she’d introduced it to these clients for a low monthly fee for an initial start-up, and they took this product on board because it was a no-brainer.

Introducing your down sell is what I call your “Columbo Moment”. Columbo was famous for saying “Oh, just one more thing.” That was his chance to get his real golden piece of information.

You’re going to introduce your down sell almost as you’re heading out the door, as if it’s a no-brainer, so that you get more customers from your activity that you can then revisit to grow into the size and scale of customer that you would like. But a customer at a low value is far better than no customer at all.

Categories
Growth Management Operations Skills

Why Share Your Vision?

Those with a tightly focused cause and Purpose for Existence (PFE) have a vision.  They don’t seek to cram it down anyone’s throat.  Instead, their passion and enthusiasm attracts others.  It soon becomes a common vision shared among many.

A good example is Tony Hsieh (pronounced, Shay).  Hsieh was already a wealthy man (having sold his startup, LinkExchange, to Microsoft for $265 million).  Nick Swinmurn asked him to invest in his online shoe store, ShoeSite.com.  Hsieh and his Venture Frogs partner, Alfred Lin, put up $500,000.  They changed the company’s name to a snappier, Zappos.com (a variation on zapatos in Spanish, meaning shoes).  They had just three very simple goals.  One was to bring great customer service—they just happened to sell shoes at an affordable price.  Another was to hit $1 billion in sales by 2010.  The third was to become one of the best places to work in the country.

Hsieh built Zappos completely around customer service, which started with happy, committed employees—that was his purpose.  This purpose required complete control over the customer experience.  They made the stomach-churning decision to stop drop-shipping product, costing them 25 percent of their 2003 sales.  They did it because drop shipments removed their control of the customer experience.  Since their purpose was to provide a great customer experience, this decision was one that they felt compelled to make.

By 2008 Zappos hit Hsieh’s second goal, $1 billion in sales.  The next year, Hsieh hit his third goal, entering Fortune’s list of “Top 100 Companies to Work For”, by debuting all the way up at number 23.  Amazon purchased Zappos in 2009 for $1.2 billion.

The story of Tony Hsieh is rare, but not necessarily unique among ultra-successful, employee/customer-oriented companies.  Facebook is reputed to have such a corporate culture.  The reason these enterprises treat their people and customers so well is because it is a key part of their purpose. How are you communicating your vision and PFE as a leader?

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Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Whose Side Are You On? The Cyberwar Question

In every war there are two sides, whether we are talking about military action, a football game, or the fight against cybercrime. What all these scenarios there have in common is there are some people on defense and those who are on the offensive side of the line. You are either the predator or the prey.

Since I am not writing for the Army generals or the New England Patriots, let’s talk about cyber attacks and which side you are on.

You are probably thinking I’m on the good side, the side that is defensively protecting my network, the side that is always under attack even though I never did anything to provoke it. And I’m here to say that might only be partially true.

If you are not fully committed to doing everything possible to stop the cyber attackers, you might actually be unwittingly helping the them more than you realize.

If you are not keeping your network secure, you are inviting hackers to use your network as a playground. A place where they can find vulnerabilities and practice exploiting them. A place where they can see what works and what doesn’t, what goes undetected and what gets noticed. If you are not creating secure websites and applications, you are giving the hackers more to learn from so they can then use it against other organizations.

Once inside your network you are also giving them a place from which they can launch their next attack. If the breach goes undetected in your network, which they most often do, they can launch an attack on someone else and make it appear to investigators that  you are the perpetrator, not them. And if you are connected to another organization’s network you might have just opened the doors for the attacker to gain access to them as we saw happen with the Target breach.

The attackers are fully vested in finding new ways to attack and get what they want, and if you are not equally fully vested in a security program, you are letting them win without putting up much of a fight. Just as you wouldn’t expect the US military to show up without a battle plan or for your favorite football team to show up without a game plan, it makes as little sense for a company or organization to show up without a security plan solidly in place.

If you are the CEO of an organization, you are responsible for what happens under your care. That means you are responsible for security and any breach that might occur. I’m not saying you personally have to be the one to figure out how to protect your network and the data that has been entrusted to you. You don’t personally have to monitor the network and know exactly what is happening at all times, but what I am saying is that you are responsible for ensuring you have the right people to do this, that they have the resources they need, the best strategy, and that a culture of security is in place.

Stay tuned for the next three articles in this series that will discuss culture of security, ensuring you have a security strategy, and having the right security resources.

As a 12-year veteran of the information security and compliance space, I invite you to send me an email at sharon@c-suiteresults.com or reach out via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/smithsharonj/ to ask any questions you might have on this topic or other security topics that might (or should!) be keeping you up at night.

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Growth Human Resources Management Personal Development

3 Employee Engagement Killers You Will See At An Airport

I originally thought about entitling this blog, “How to avoid behaving like an airport.”  When I think about airport customer experience and employee engagement I remember how much I dislike traveling now.  The thought of it gives me a stomach ache and heartache.

Whenever I travel my wife always asks, “How was the trip?”  At best my answer is usually, “OK.  Nothing really happened.”  Occasionally I am lucky and the center seat is open.  Then I might exclaim, “Great, I had no one next to me and it was a pleasure.”  But, about 20% of the time I end up sitting in the center seat which more than offsets any excitement about the center seat being open.  Notice I am not mentioning the screaming baby.

I digress.  These issues are mostly the “luck (or un-luck) of the draw” and so it is difficult to hold airport leadership accountable for these random annoying events.  The next time you are traveling look for these issues.  It’s an opportunity to remind yourself to avoid certain behaviors that can damage employee engagement and customer experience every time.

Furthermore, these are behaviors (and habits) and behaviors can change.  Leaders who have these behaviors can change them immediately if they are convinced employee engagement needs to be managed and if they are convinced they damage employee engagement.  Habits are difficult to change but Viktor Frankl once said, “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”   If leaders appreciate a big enough “why” to change their behavior, I am saying that they can and they must!

If we truly appreciate the importance of employee engagement and how it impacts customer experience, we can change our habits.  Let’s not be like an airport.  Let’s not be:

  • Uncommunicative on essential information
  • Weak on personal accountability
  • Indifferent to feelings

Uncommunicative on essential information

Imagine you are at an airport.  Have you ever experienced an unexpected delay on a flight?  Imagine you are sitting at the gate and the expected boarding time passes and you neither see nor hear any communication about the change.  You walk to the customer service desk and you ask for an update.  You are then told there is a delay.  The communication was not proactive.  It was reactive.  The airline was either unaware or purposefully delayed communicating the status of the flight departure.

Imagine being in that situation.  How are you feeling?  Is there more trust or less?  Is there more credibility or less?  Is there more stress or less?  Leaders need to anticipate the feelings and reactions of employees if important information changes.  Poor communication at a time like this is either misleading and/or incompetent.  It damages trust and damaged trust will damage engagement.

On a recent trip the gate agent made an announcement. I couldn’t understand her in part because of the quality of the PA system and in part because she made the announcement at the same time another adjacent gate agent was making an announcement.   Although I could not understand her words, her body language told me it was serious and not good news.

I asked the people around me what she said.  They didn’t know either.  I walked up to her and told her she could not be heard and asked her to repeat it. She told me it was a delay due to maintenance.  She did not repeat her announcement.  My guess is she was worried about the negative reaction.

Effective leaders can anticipate reactions to changed information by putting themselves in the “shoes” of the employees.  Any change that could have been communicated and is not done in a proactive method will create a reaction that feels disrespectful.    Any reaction that feels disrespectful will damage trust which will damage engagement.

Weak on personal accountability

Who do you call at an airport when you are upset about an issue?  You can talk to (or yell) at a customer service agent.  Does it help?  They rarely have the authority to act for correction.  When your flight requires a change perhaps an argument with the customer service person will work.  For that issue they are empowered.  They can and will also act on your behalf when the airline is at fault. Other than that, you might be very frustrated at the answer you get to correct when you attempt to correct an issue. For example, to whom do you complain when the TSA line is too long and you are about to miss your flight?  Will TSA respond?

An organization with high employee engagement has clarified roles and responsibilities and has empowered the employees to act.   This allows freedom to act. Freedom to act on behalf of the customer will create an impression that the employees are trusted to do the right thing for both customers and for the company.  This improves engagement.  Any time you can demonstrate trust you have improved engagement.

Leaders can take time to help employees to know their roles and responsibilities.  They can take time to ask questions about issues employees encounter which require quick decisions and good judgement.  Leaders can take time to give employees the tools to act on behalf of the company to do their jobs properly and to serve customers with grace and respect.  It is rare to see this at an airport.

Indifferent to feelings

Do people get upset at airports?  YES!  Pretty much every day.  What can we do when people get upset?  We can provide empathy.  We don’t always have the answers to the issues and we don’t always know the root causes of problems.  What we always have is the ability to express empathy.

Empathy is the sincere expression that we understand the importance of an issue and we appreciate how the person must feel about the situation.  We can always do this. Leaders always can do this. Why not do it?

In my experience, there is a shortage of empathy in the workplace.  Empathy helps people to move past the negative emotions and move toward positive action. Leaders are in the best position to both demonstrate empathy and to show others how important the expression of empathy is for mental health and problem solving.

There are three simple behaviors leaders can do to avoid damaging employee engagement.  Why not anticipate communication on important issues?  Why not demonstrate accountability and why not help others to demonstrate it as well?  Why not demonstrate empathy when there is emotion?  Simple actions that are doable can make a big difference to both employees and customers.  Why not?  Why not avoid behaving like the typical airport?

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

Customers are Always Right… Not Anymore

Customers are Always Right….Not Anymore

(You’ve created this monster. Now, what are you going to do!)

You have to admit, things are different in our world these days. We are faced with dangers we didn’t worry about a few years ago. Every day we hear about mass shootings, road rage, physical and verbal attacks or disrespecting authority. Right as we get used to these horrid occurrences, something more appalling happens, like the shooting in Las Vegas. Crimes will continue to intensify and the more they occur, we will become desensitized to them.

The behavior of our society has altered from what it was even ten years ago. People make judgments on others without knowing anything about them. Verbal attackers interpret what they think the speaker means. They translate what is spoken by their own definitions without even knowing the person, and the problem is escalating.

This judgmental behavior carries over to your business. No longer is Sally Shopper coming in for a pleasant experience looking for her treasure. Now customers are rude, demanding what they want. It doesn’t matter what you offer them, they think they deserve better. This attitude and expectation of the shopper has changed the concept: the customer is always right.

Your goal as a business owner is to serve your consumer. You want to take care of them so they will return. To make that happen, you give them special services or pricing.  The idea is to turn the customer into a repeat buyer instead of a one-time shopper.

This mentality doesn’t work today. The consumer is not the person you have catered to in the past. You are now a supplier to purchasers who have a “me” attitude, wanting to tell you what the deal will be. Although you give away the farm it won’t be good enough.

Nevertheless, you can turn this around provided you change your philosophy. It takes time and sacrifice, but in the end, your company’s sales will benefit. You have to stop the bleed by teaching your patrons how to be good customers.

Think about what has been occurring. The purchaser comes in, you show them what they need, they bicker, you give in, and when they come back they quarrel more. They know you will give in so why not. You have trained the customer what to do, consequently, they will continue. The result is a negative impact on your bottom line.

This cycle has to stop. It’s okay to give special service or pricing to a consumer the first time. Through that deal, they see they are appreciated. Make it a big deal so they understand it is exclusive to them and a one-time occurrence. Here’s the hard part. Then it’s back to business.

Whoa, whoa you say. I don’t want to lose their business. This is where we separate the men from the boys. It’s time to go into training mode. You are looking for long term. Making the first transaction an unrepeatable, good deal is a start. What’s next?

It isn’t necessary to keep selling below what you list. If you are constantly being asked for discounts then reduce your price and uphold it. You won’t need to lower the amount because it is priced right. You believe in what you sell; now teach the customer the value of your products or services.

What will happen is the client will get used to how you do business. You don’t see doctors and dentists being asked to lower their price because we know the price is fixed. We can have that too. For example, when your customer wants to purchase an item listed at $500 don’t change your $800 price any lower. If they are only willing to pay $500 then show them what they get for $500. They set their budget; we teach them what’s available at that price.

We can’t do business the way we used to; consequently, we have to change with the times. Educate your customers. The consumer has forgotten that you are there to help them find the product or service they are looking for. You are the expert of your business. Train them how to work with you. Stand by your price. Stick with your policies. If you are not willing to do that then rethink what you are doing. If you don’t believe in what you are offering how will your customers.

Categories
Management Marketing Skills

Magic Words: Increase Your Average Transaction Value

If you sell a number of anything, then there are magic words to increase the number of items, objects, or hours upwards. You’ll typically get people stuck in indecision between two options based on size, and we want them to pick the top one, the bigger number, as this is the one that rewards us most.

Let’s imagine it was numbers of people in a training course. You were speaking to the training department and they were unsure whether to send three or four people. They need help making their mind up, and they’re almost about to say we need time to think about it. Ever heard that before? Knowing you’ve heard that before we want you to try and bring them to a decision, and we want them to choose four.

The magic word that I’m going to share with you is the magic word, ‘enough’. It might sound simple; it’s a tiny little word with only a few characters in it, but if you say to people at the very right time ‘Would the four places be enough for you?’ Provided you’re reasonable, people will take the higher option, because the brain asks itself the direct question that you’ve asked it: “Is four enough? Yeah four’s enough so let’s move forward with four”.

So what about if you sold on quantity and maybe you were selling print? You typically sold 500 letterheads, but you’d like to sell 1000, and they couldn’t choose between the two. Imagine what a difference it could make if you said, ‘Would 1000 be enough for you?’ Imagine you were selling consultancy services and you were selling days of your time over a month and they weren’t sure to have you for one day a month or two days a month. ‘Would two days a month be enough for you?

The beauty of ‘enough’ is it’s difficult to go backwards from, provided you’re reasonable. So try this today, tomorrow, or the day after. The next time you’re speaking to somebody, ask how many they’re looking for, and using the higher number, ask them ‘is it enough for you?’ You might be amazed at the response.

I do hope that’s been enough for you, and until next time, keep moving forward, keep picking up pace and let your momentum carry you as far as your ambition guides you.