Tweet

When Something has to Change it's up to You to Create that Change & Increase Sales

Written by: Cheryl A. Clausen

Article Overview: When customer retention is falling or returns and cancellations are increasing it doesn't take a genius to determine something is terribly wrong. The exact reason(s) these bad things are happening may be related to actions taken by someone other than you.

When Something has to Change it's up to You to Create that Change & Increase Sales

When customer retention is falling or returns and cancellations are increasing it doesn't take a genius to determine something is terribly wrong. The exact reason(s) these bad things are happening may be related to actions taken by someone other than you. It really doesn’t even matter whose fault it is, what does matter is it’s your bank account that is negatively impacted.

Your sales training may not have prepared you for this, but you have one of two choices you have to make. You can either continue to place blame and suffer the negative consequences from another’s actions, or you can accept that another’s actions have really messed things up for you and take responsibility for extricating yourself from these negative consequences. No matter how big a screw up someone else makes there is always a way to turn that screw up into a personal opportunity for you. You just have to find it.

You’ve been through tough times and hard knocks before and you know that your sales success always come down to the actions you take. Sometimes you are made aware of the stink bomb before it hits your customers, and at other times both you and the customer are blind-sided. Either way when the stink begins to permeate the air and you get your first irate call you have to immediately switch into customer loyalty mode and protect your most important asset, the customer.

Set your ego aside and get to the bottom of the stink so you can take action to overcome it. That means even though this customer wants to end one of your best sales relationships you have to: acknowledge how they feel, accept responsibility and confirm you will get to the bottom of what has happened, and confirm your commitment to do whatever is in their best interest. Plus you need to agree to get back to them within a certain time frame to share what you’ve learned so far. Follow up with them at the agreed upon time even if you don’t know anything more than you did when you agreed to get back to them.

As you’re resolving the issue be thinking how you can turn this into an opportunity. Use your imagination to discover how this bad thing can somehow be turned into an advantage for the customer. It may mean you have to come up with an alternative service to meet the customer’s needs, it may mean there was just a misunderstanding caused by someone in your supply chain and you need to come up with a peace offering that builds your relationship and value for the customer, and it may mean you have to come up with a different approach to how your service is used or delivered so it better serves the customer. Whatever needs to happen you and you alone have to take responsibility for making it happen so both you and your customer come out on top.

Related Articles
  You Can Win More Sales by Accepting & Working with Change Than Denying It
  How Sales Is More About Playing the Odds Than You Might Think
  Sales Coaching Tip: Change Your Role to Increase Sales
  Ambush
  Today's rant - TV Sales Managers

Article Tags: best interest, cancellations, customer loyalty, customer retention, ego, exact reason, genius, hard knocks, negative consequences, personal opportunity, relationships, sales success, screw, stink bomb, time frame, tough times, two choices



Related Forum Posts
Re: Spellcheck? - [quote="TheAnonymousMan":2f894q6j]When discussing the majority of people I would definitely say that most people hit the "Change" or "Ignore" button without thinking too much about the correct spelling of a word. All bosses are concerned about is getting the report to the Directors meeting on time.[/quote:2f894q6j] That probably depends on what the "majority" are trying to accomplish. I have word set to alert me about misspellings and grammatical problems, so I fix most as I go. But I also add names etc to the dictionary because I get tired of seeing the red and green squiggles when I know the info is right. If you're only going to click "Change" or "Ignore" then why bother to take the time to use spell check????? Business people that I work for want the info compiled in a timely manner and they want it right - which is fine because that's the way I strive to do any project. Sending out a memo, letter, report etc with obvious spelling and grammatical mistakes makes the person and the company look bad as far as I'm concerned. Shri
Re: e-Commerce and e-Payment providers - Hi GT It is only fairly recently that people in South Africa have been able to get full use of Paypal as we were only able at one time to make payments but not receive them. Fortunately this has now changed. I have received money through Global X Change for one of the affiliate programs that I promote and have found them pretty good as the money is normally transferred directly into my bank account within 2-3 days and I have not had any problems with them. MichelleJ
Re: Obama Wants Social Security for Illegals - [quote="Alan Mater":3kaa8sg4] Obama WILL make changes... but they're not the changes we as a country need or should look forward to.[/quote:3kaa8sg4] Sad but this is exactly how I feel about it. Change is coming - but unless I'm really wrong, it is not a change this country needs. Amazing how much a good speaker with a good speech writer can do. If you paid attention to the things he said "off script" - much of it is frightening. Chris
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Are you an Opportunity Addict? - 1) if you find yourself saying yes without thinking about how it will affect your other priorities 2) you have over 10 projects/inventions going on at the same time and this seems normal to you 3) you have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on manufacturing, prototypes, etc. not to mention thousands of hours of your time....but you havent followed through on any of it 4) most of your projects are falling behind or have completely fallen off your radar....which is fueling your frustration The first step in recovery is to recognize this as a pattern of self sabotage. If you are clear in what your overall goals and objectives are, you should be able to create a lens through which you measure opportunities. You create your life, and your to do list. Change, Add, Remove, Adjust time-lines - whatever you like. But remember that every piece of unfinished business - stays that way J


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How to Sell to the Price Driven Customer

Selling On Ebay The Good The Bad And The Ugly

Severance and Separation Agreements

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.