Performance Breakthrough News

Satisfied Customers or Loyal Customers…Is There a Question?

Posted on December 9, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

According to author, Jeffrey Gitomer…”Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless” –

Apparently companies like Costco understand the difference…They have been recognized as the leader in customer loyalty among warehouse retailers, rocketing from start-up to Fortune 50 status in less than 20 years, while spending next to nothing on advertising and marketing because of word of mouth referrals. They know that companies with the highest customer Loyalty typically grow at more than twice the rate of their competition. And, by Raising Customer retention rates by 5% it is possible to increase the value of an average customer by 25% to 100% (The Loyalty Effect, F. Reichheld, 2006). Rather than spending time trying to remember if you’ve ever seen a Costco advertisement, lets talk behavior and why emotions matter in the customer experience.

Regardless of how high a company’s satisfaction levels may appear, satisfying Customers without creating an emotional connection with them has no real value. This should be a red flag issue, especially when you consider that it’s reported that 90 to 96% of customers won’t complain. They simply walk away. Emotions Matter…because customers and staff are always emotional, and in service industries because it is so personal and stressful, the emotions are more intense. A healthy way to view emotions is not as a problem But as the basis for forming relationships – This is how we develop Loyalty!

As a coach and consultant who works with business organizations to help improve their performance. Our work often starts with a discussion about the vision of the company. If it’s written, you can usually find a statement about customers under glass on a conference room wall. It often goes something like this…” We believe Customer Satisfaction is our #1 Priority.” But when you ask people inside the organization what that statement really means and how it’s measured, the silence is often deafening. If the people in the organization don’t have a clear definition of what you mean by customer satisfaction, then how do they convey it to your customers?

I have come to the realization that “Customer Loyalty is all that matters,” especially when you define loyal customers as people who will do business with you again, tell others about you without hesitation, and refer people they care about to do business with you. Hugh McColl, referred to as the greatest banker of all time, founder of North Carolina National Bank, that ultimately became Bank of America had a simple philosophy: “I take care of my people, my people take care of my customers, my customers take care of my shareholders.” He never said, “I want to be the number one bank on the planet.” Loyalty is earned…it stems from actions that are taken and the words that are spoken by employees. It’s not just business as usual …

Do you have any horribly disappointing or pleasantly suprising customer service stories?

The Recipe For Mediocre

Posted on November 29, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

With the New Year coming up, I bet you’re starting to think about new goals for your business. I would also bet that your goal is not to be mediocre in 2011.

I’ve just made a short video that will change your perpective on what makes us great vs. mediocre.

In this video, you’ll learn:

What most of us spend 80% of our time doing and how it keeps us from being great.
The real meaning of “well rounded”
How to create an extraordinary team

Be sure to watch the video right now. Just click here or on the image below). It’ll only take you about 2 minutes and it will dramatically improve your business and your life.

After you watch the video, be sure to check out the tools (team coaching, individual coaching and products) I have available to help you take the next step.

Break through and make it happen!

Mike

Using THIS Four-Letter Word Can Help You Get More Sales

Posted on November 23, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

Do you remember the last time you went to a dealership to buy a car? Over the years, my experience never varies. I pull up at the dealership, and a sales person literally runs over to my car and tackles me before I can even get out of the front door. The sales person’s first question? You guessed it: “What would it take to have you drive home in this new car today?”

In sales, we call that type of question a “closing question.” Any good sales person (or any good attorney for that matter!) will tell you that you shouldn’t ask a closing question until you are sure that the answer will be “Yes!” And, to get to a “yes” answer to the question of whether your client wants to buy whatever you are selling, you need to first determine what that client needs and wants.

I once heard a statistic that less than 20% of all sales people actually take the time to ask questions of their prospects before asking for the sale – before asking that closing question. So, if you are in sales, keep reading. Today, we’ll share with you a simple formula for asking great questions that will put you in the 20% of sales people who take the time to understand their prospect’s needs and wants as a part of the sales process. That formula is a four-letter word: GRCO.

(OK, so it’s not really a word, but actually an acronym, but it’s a terrific mnemonic aide to help you remember this formula for asking questions.)

Let’s set the context for a typical sales call or meeting. You would first build some rapport and trust with your prospect. This might include a warm welcome, some opening questions about them or their business, good eye contact, and other such techniques to establish a productive relationship at the beginning of a sales engagement. Once you have established some trust, your next step is to ask the GRCO questions. Let’s take them one at a time:

G stands for “Goal” Questions. When talking with your client, start by asking them some questions about what matters most to them. What are they trying to accomplish? What are the important measures for the business this year? What will make them consider the year a success? What do they personally want to accomplish in X time? Goal questions allow your client to talk about their envisioned future, about what they really need and want, and allow you to laser-focus on what is most important to them.

R stands for “Rewards” Questions. Now that you know the goals, ask your prospect questions that tell you more about what is in it for them when they achieve those goals. Good questions to ask include, “What is the benefit of achieving that goal?” or “What will be different when you achieve X?” Rewards questions give you a sense of the value of the goals, which can often tell you a lot about how much the client may need your help to meet that goal.

C stands for “Consequences” Questions. These are the reverse of rewards questions. What will happen if X is not reached? If the client/business can’t achieve whatever the goal is, how will that impact the business? What is the downside of not achieving the goal? Many people say that most sales happen in order to avoid a problem, rather than in order to achieve a particular target. Understanding the consequences for your client is critical to your ability to then map your solution to their needs.

Last, O stands for “Obstacles” Questions. What would keep the client/business from achieving the goal? What is standing in the way of success? What challenges are they running into? These questions are very powerful tools in your sales arsenal, since they often point to problems that the client cannot overcome themselves. That’s why they need you! If you can identify internal challenges and obstacles, and whatever you are selling can help them get past those issues, then your ability to sell just got easier.

Armed with the answers to these important GRCO questions, you are now ready to show how your product or service is perfectly positioned to help the client achieve the goals, overcome the obstacles, achieve the rewards and avoid the consequences related to that goal. The next time you walk into a sales call, take a minute to write the acronym GRCO at the top of your note pad. If needed, draft some GRCO questions in advance so that you can use them with your prospect. Then methodically ask these four types of questions and let the client tell you exactly what they need to be successful. If your solution aligns to the GRCO answers, you are then ready to ask your closing question – and get a “Yes” response.

Good luck! Let me know how it works for you – I’m always interested in hearing about your experiences.

Welcome to Performance Breakthrough

Posted on November 17, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

You started your business with dreams of more money, more time and more passion…only to find you have less of each.

You Deserve More

WHAT’S YOUR GOAL?

Are You a Business Owner or Business Leader Who Wants to Improve Team Performance?
Are You a Business Owner, Business Leader or Salesperson Who Wants to Improve Their Individual Performance?
Are You Looking for a Speaker or Facilitator for Your Next Meeting, Event or Conference?

The Golden Rule Doesn’t Work Part 2

Posted on November 2, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

In our last video, we challenged your long held beliefs about the Golden Rule. We talked about treating people the way THEY wanted to be treated instead of how WE wanted to be treated.

The challenge is in finding out how other people want to be treated. Most of us don’t have a clue.

In this video, you’ll learn

Why asking someone how they want to be treated almost never works
How do use behavioral interviewing as a leadership tool

Be sure to watch the video right now. Just click here or on the image below). It’ll only take you about 2 minutes and it will dramatically improve your business and your life.

After you watch the video, be sure to check out the tools (coaching and products) I have available to help you take the next step.

Break through and make it happen!

Who is Preventing You From Selling?

Posted on October 22, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

How many times have you sat through a sales meeting or any meeting for that matter where you’ve heard someone make the suggestion: “We’ve got to think outside the box.” It’s a phrase that doesn’t need a whole lot of explanation. In fact, it’s seems like the perfect phrase to capture the frustration we experience when our imagination feels trapped and our thoughts appear stuck to the soles of our shoes.

If we think of this metaphorical box as containing the walls that confine our thinking, then by understanding these barriers we open up the opportunity to break free and take control of our negative senses and use the power of our thoughts to develop new ideas and opportunities. In the Little Red Book of Selling, Jeffrey Gittomer outlined the 8.5 negative senses that the subconscious mind presents and projects when selling, which become the walls that paralyze our thinking:

The sense of fear.
The sense of nervousness.
The sense of rejection.
The sense of procrastination or reluctance.
The sense of justification/rationale.
The sense of self-doubt.
The sense of uncertainty.
The sense of doom.

8.5. The sense of “I’m unlucky.”

Understanding that our minds move us in the direction of our current dominant thoughts, we have the ability to penetrate these walls by focusing our attention to our positive thoughts and taking back control. When you begin to feel in control, you begin to radiate positive energy, which leads to (sales) success. According to Gittomer, adopting the following 6 positive sales senses is the way forward….

The sense of confidence….The air you have about you that’s bred by preparation and previous wins. The best part about confidence is that it’s contagious. You can give it to your prospect. (Don’t confuse confidence with its evil twin – arrogance.)
The sense of positive anticipation – Everyone has read the best book on the subject before the age of five. – The Little Engine That Could. I think I can, I think I can. Thinking you can is 50% of the outcome (So is thinking you can’t.)
The sense of determination – The sense of hanging in there no matter what. Determination is having the prospect tell you “no,” and you hear it as, “not yet.”
The sense of achievement – Everyone subconsciously strives for their goals. Sensing achievement comes from a replay of the satisfaction you gained from making your last sale. Remember how good it felt?
The sense of winning – Everyone wants to win, but only a few actually do. That’s because the will to prepare to win must exceed the will to win.
The sense of success – This is the hardest sense to master, because you must sense it before you actually achieve it. That calm feeling of money in the bank. An “I can do it” attitude. And a well-lit path in front of you. The sense of positive purpose.

Earl Nightingale, in his legendary tape, “The Strangest Secret,” says, “You become what you think about.” Truer words have never been spoken. But the secret to “The Strangest Secret,” is – It’s a dedicated self-discipline that must be practiced every day. How close to “every day” are you?

The most interesting aspect of “The Strangest Secret,” is that it contains the counter balance to turn all your destructive senses into constructive senses by employing the strongest sense of them all – common sense.

Argh! Do I have to go to another meeting today?

Posted on October 13, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

Which of these situations has happened to you?

In your last meeting, did you walk out without a clear idea of what you were supposed to do?
Have you looked around a meeting and wondered why all those people were invited?
Have you calculated how much money your organization is “spending” waiting for meetings to start?

We all know that business can’t operate without meetings – meetings to plan, meetings for updates, meetings to keep communication lines open. However, effectively-run meetings are often hard to find in the workplace. A survey by Hofstra University projected that over $40 billion is wasted on mismanaged meetings every year. Since there are between 11 million and 33 million meetings conducted in the United States every day, the business of meetings is critical to everyone’s continued success.

As a result of discussions with a cross-section of employees and organizations, we’ve put together a Top Five list of tips for effective meetings.

Tip #1: Communicate the goal and the agenda for the meeting. Publicize that goal when you schedule the meeting, and then evaluate every topic against that goal – if the discussion doesn’t support the goal, then it shouldn’t be in the agenda. At Intel Corporation, they keep a poster in every meeting room that says “Do you know the purpose of this meeting?” How many meetings actually include a firm agenda that is published in advance to all the attendees? An agenda should clearly state the topics, an approximate length for discussion, the “owner” of each topic, and action steps for each topic.

Tip #2: Identify the meeting participants. Recent research shows that after the first seven participants, every additional person lowers the productivity of the group in a meeting. Wow! Consider your own meetings – how many do you go to that have more than seven participants? Consider who really needs to attend based on the agenda. Also, remember that the more people invited to the meeting, the longer the meeting will take.

Tip #3: Establish the ground rules for the meeting. Some typical items to include in the ground rules are when agendas are due to participants, the use of technology in a meeting, and start and end times. Designate a time keeper who is not the meeting organizer. One of the biggest time wasters is meetings that don’t start and end on time – wouldn’t you agree?

Tip #4: Use a Parking Lot. A Parking Lot is a place to put topics that fall outside the meeting agenda – or that should be postponed for later. Some meeting organizers use visual Parking Lots – such as a piece of large paper posted on the wall where ideas can be posted during meetings so they don’t get lost. Some meeting organizers simply record parking lot ideas on a pad of paper – or assign someone to capture them and send the list out for inclusion in future meeting agendas. The disciplined use of a “parking lot” will keep your meetings on track and on agenda.

Tip #5: Set Clear Action Items. Establish what is next, how will it be done, who is responsible, and deadline details before you leave the meeting. How do you hold people accountable in your meetings? Even if you are not the meeting organizer, you can still push for accountability – remind the host to set clear next steps and timelines.

Bonus Tip: Evaluate Your Meetings. Periodically, take the time to review the regular meetings in your organization. Do they all still have a clear purpose? Are they the right length? Are the right people attending? What needs to change in order to make your meetings more effective?

As a final thought, consider this quote from Patrick Lencioni’s book, Death by Meeting, “Most executives I know spend hours sending email, leaving voice mail, and roaming the halls to clarify issues that should have been made clear during a meeting in the first place … I have no doubt that sneaker time is the most subtle, dangerous, and underestimated black hole in corporate America.”

What is your biggest meeting challenge? We want to hear from you. Write to us and share your stories and your ideas. And if you want to dive deeper into this topic – and especially how to make your meetings more effective even when you are not in charge of them, email us at mgoldman@pb-coach.com.

Moments of Truth In The Customer Experience

Posted on September 23, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

Nancy complains, “Why can’t they get their act together? This is so frustrating. The first person I talked to wasn’t even nice. The second person was much nicer but couldn’t make a decision. I got sent to a technician and got lost in their phone system. It turns out they don’t have the fix I need. Then when I try to return what I bought, it sounds like the person in accounting doesn’t even know what to do to give me a credit.”

Has this ever happened to you? Not a pleasant customer experience.

Each organization’s moments of truth are when it touches each customer. Is the customer experience delightful, positive and successful? The whole point of all the company’s strategizing, structuring, systematizing, training, employment practices, service/product creation and testing, marketing and sales efforts, is to get that customer to buy and to buy multiple times. Most of us have heard that it takes 5 times as much money to get a new customer as a repeat customer. Also, we’ve heard that raising customer loyalty by 5% can increase profitability from 25-100%. So creating that positive customer experience (first time and every time) is the focus of everything we do when we build a business. Whether or not we’re thinking about ‘total customer experience,’ the customer is always thinking: Do I like this? Will I stay? Will I come back? Is the product/service good? Is it worth the hassle if other parts of the experience are not good? Will I tell other people about my good/bad experience?

So if your organization’s total efforts are not leading to good customer experiences, you are missing the boat and leaving money on the table.

What goes into the Total Customer Experience?

Let’s look at Nancy’s complaint and the ‘moments of truth’ that are revealed. What does it mean ‘to get their act together?’

Emotional Connection – The first person wasn’t even nice. People buy from people they know, like and trust. If someone isn’t personable, caring and relating to Nancy as a unique human being, your company isn’t even getting to first base.

Empowered Decision Making – Too bad Nancy had to get passed around. It’s frustrating to get passed from person to person until there is finally someone who has any authority.. Companies who are recognized for their superior customer experiences empower the person who answers the phone to make most decisions. In order to make this happen, they recruit wisely and invest in developing their people to make good decisions, to buy into the company’s values and vision, to understand the customer’s needs, to gather feedback.

Infrastructure – The phone system, the staff’s capabilities using phone and technology, availability of information about each customer (customer relationship management), knowledge database, technology to track trouble tickets or complaints. This kind of infrastructure allows caring staff to do a better job with the resources they need. It allows for quicker troubleshooting and availability of information on a broader basis for more empowered decision making. It would have allowed Nancy to find out sooner rather than later that ‘the fix’ she needed wasn’t available. But even better it would collect information about how many customers were having the same issue so the company could create ‘the fix’ sooner and take the issue off the table.

Systems – If the accounting team had a documented system for handling returns and credits, and each person was trained in it, then Nancy would not have had such a terrible experience. In fact, if the processes were really systematized and the right infrastructure was in place, the initial person who took the call could have handled it himself.

These are just a few of the things that companies who manage the total customer experience look at. Of course, it all starts with leadership. Leaders who get their heads out of the sand and recognize the importance of the customer experience want to infuse attention to the customer experience as they do strategic planning, diagram the organizational structure, create systems and processes in all departments, design their internal reward and recognition structures, and recruit, develop and empower their personnel. That’s what Nancy’s comment about ‘getting their act together’ is really all about.

If you have a story about a really great customer experience, please share it here along with your thoughts about the components that came together to create the delightful experience you had. Thanks for sharing.

The Golden Rule Doesn’t Work!

Posted on September 22, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

Do you adhere to the adage that all employees should be treated equally? If so, your team will never achieve their true potential, and never be truly happy in their work.

I’ve just made a short video that will change your perpective on your long held beliefs about the Golden Rule.

In this video, you’ll learn

Why the Golden Rule doesn’t work
What you need to know to motivate your yourself and your team
The principle of “acceptance” and the platinum rule

Be sure to watch the video right now. Just click here or on the image below). It’ll only take you about 2 minutes and it will dramatically improve your business and your life.

After you watch the video, be sure to check out the tools (coaching and products) I have available to help you take the next step.

Break through and make it happen!

Keep Your Motivation Engine Running

Posted on September 18, 2010August 16, 2013 by admin

I was running late for an appointment last week and jumped into my car and turned the key .The nice smooth sound of ignition I was so used to hearing was replaced by the horrible grinding sound of an engine just about to turnover. I kept turning the key thinking that by some miracle it would stop the grinding noise and just start. Instead it drained what was left in the battery and silence followed. I was dead in the water.

How many times have you found yourself ready to go but unable to move? You lack the spark and or energy to move forward. Where did it go? You might have started out on your goal, journey or project with plenty of good intentions but for whatever reason it dissipated or just stopped. As a student of human behavior and a Business Coach I am brutally aware of the difficulty of keeping ourselves motivated to get to where we want to go. The traditional motivation methods most of us have experienced are motivation by incentive or fear. The boss tries to scare you into action by threats that range from firing to demotion. The next day in a change of heart the boss offers you the promise of bonuses, promotion or equity if you achieve the goal. Clearly both can have an impact, and often do, but the results are usually short term at best. Threats lose their veracity if they are never acted on. Incentives are only effective if you believe the goal is achievable but lose their long term impact once achieved. Neither approach has a long lasting motivational impact. So what is one to do if you want to change or achieve a difficult goal but can’t seem to stay motivated to do what is necessary to get to your destination?

I believe part of the answer is in finding what sparks us or excites us. If you can discover what you are passionate about and harness that passion you can access an unlimited battery of inspiration energy to keep you motivated and moving forward. Discovering your passion can be difficult since most of us have followed the career scripts provided to us by well meaning parents, educators and society. A simple way to start would be to list all the activities you do in your present job that you enjoy doing and are good at. The next step would be to ask your peers, friends, clients and family what they think your greatest strengths are. You should get some clarity on what you are passionate about and what truly motivates you. Finally, a good book that gives some insight to the power of connecting your passion to business is “Crush It!” by Gary Vaynerchuk

Aligning your passion with the behaviors necessary to convert that passion into results assures you a consistent spark that will keep your motor running!