Focus on the Customer!

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Customers purchasing from you should not signal the end of the relationship.  Too often  it seems that consumers fall into the “out of sight, out of mind” category after they buy something.  In reality, that’s when companies should work the hardest at strengthening relationships with their communities.  According to a new survey conducted by Dimensional Research, an overwhelming 90 percent of respondents who read positive online reviews said they influenced the buying decision, while 86 percent said buying decisions were influenced by negative online reviews.

Your customers don’t stop being important once they’ve bought from you.  Once they move through your sales funnel – if you’ve been able to keep them happy during the process – they will reenter the mix and join those other voices.  If they feel like you have slighted them in any way, the long-term negative impact to your brand could be significant.

The experience must be good or else.  It’s a buyer’s world, and you must assume that your community of clients and prospects have robust networks of their own.  So, a new level of sincerity and excellence must permeate every facet of your organization.  You may revel in gathering a few dollars in the short term, but long-term sustainability is not built on taking the pulse of a market, but by being part of that pulse.

In today’s world, you need to drop your tunnel vision on short-term profit and relentlessly focus on being excellent for everyone, regardless of where they are in the sales funnel.  Buy or “goodbye” is no longer effective in a world where purchase decisions are made before human contact takes place.

We address our efforts to continually support the market in the next issue of Connect Magazine.  The cover story “Never Grow Up” is a fun piece that reveals why companies can never get too set in their ways.  Change and the shortness of lifecycle curves demand that we never let our organization, products or services get tired and stale.  If you don’t already subscribe, call us and we’ll get an issue to you.

Focus on customers!  Look at every stage of their interaction with your company from their perspective.  As yourself what it’s like to be them at any specific moment.   Then, design your answers and programs to turn them into raving fans.

Keep everything in sight.  Good luck and good selling.

Thanks For Everything!

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I love this time of year!  Somehow, the holidays help me regain my focus.  I always begin the New Year charged up and committed to a better me.  At times like these I reflect on how lucky I am and how the world is full of blessings and heroes.  I met one recently.  Allow me to explain.

It was a Saturday and I had made a trip to the post office.  When I got there, the place was in a total stir.  They had closed early leaving the customers to weigh their own packages and to buy stamps from the vending machines.  Because this was new to most of us, things were moving slowly.  Lines were long and tempers were short.  No one was in a good mood.

As I stamped my letters, an old man walked through the door.  He looked to be in his mid 80’s.  He was bent at the waist and could barely walk.  It took him forever to cross the floor and arrive at the postage scales.  It was painful to watch him move.

I must confess that I tried to finish before his presence could inconvenience me.  I don’t know why I was in such a hurry.  I just didn’t want to wait.  I didn’t want this guy to interfere with my ability to get to my next trivial task.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him struggle with the scales.  He had a large magnifying glass and he was trying to read the display.  People waiting behind him were losing their patience.  Like me, they were all resenting him holding them up.  None of us seemed willing to share the post office with this guy…this veteran.

For some reason I spoke to him.  I asked if I could help him with what he was doing.  He said that I could.  A thirty something woman behind him exhaled in disgust and left the post office in a huff.  Obviously, she had very important matters waiting elsewhere.  This guy was really causing a problem.

“What are we trying to do?” I asked.  “I’m trying to mail this book to a friend in Texas,” he explained.  “I have arthritis and Parkinson’s disease, so I can’t do much,” he added.  “I can’t read the scales either.”

I asked if I could help him address the package.  He said yes and explained that it was a book on B-24 bombers.  He was mailing it to a friend in Texas.  The two of them flew together in World War II.  They had not seen each other in 44 years.

He told me how his granddaughter found this guy’s address on the Internet.  “She’s real smart,” he said.  “She knows how to find the address of anybody in the whole country just by typing their name,” he added.  “Then she went on the Internet and ordered this book.  We got it in the mail the very next day.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?” he asked.

As I purchased the necessary postage and stamped his package he told me what a thrill it was to find his old friend.  They had been talking on the phone and he had decided to send him this book.  His face lit up like the sun as he talked about their phone conversations and the missions they flew during the war.  He really loves and misses his friend.

By the time we finished, the post office was empty.  He turned to say thanks and offered to give me his left over stamps.  I refused and told him that I should be thanking him.  There was no way to repay the debt that we all owe him and his fellow veterans.

As he left, he turned, snapped to attention and saluted.  It was all I could do to choke back the lump in my throat.  This man was proud of his service to us.  He took it seriously.  We should too.

So…it’s the season of Thanksgiving and Christmas.  What are you thankful for?  I’m thankful for many things.  One is my mother who cried every time the flag passed in a parade.  Her blood ran red, white and blue.  She taught all of her children pride in family and country.  I appreciate that.

I’m also thankful for our servicemen.  I include those serving today and all that have put it on the line for us in the past.  I’m also thankful for the old soldier that “couldn’t do much.”  Thanks for the gift you gave us all before I was even born.  Thanks also for the gift of your need when I was nearby.  I’m glad I was the one to receive it.

What does all of this have to do with printing and publishing?  Absolutely nothing, unless you consider our right to do it.  Nothing unless you include the fact that we’re free to write what we think even if it is against policy.  You’ll have to answer that question for yourself.