The A to Z of Small Business Sales Loyalty Part 3 Loyalty to Customers Employees and Self
The A to Z of Small Business Sales Loyalty Part 3 Loyalty to Customers Employees and Self
What is loyalty?
According to my Webster’s College Dictionary, loyalty is a state of, or feeling faithfulness. Faith is well known in the religious context and from following religious rules such as the Ten Commandments. In North America, we live primarily as Christians, under the doctrine of Christian rules many of which have now been scribed into our secular constitutions and laws.
What is loyalty to self?
To have loyalty and faith as Christians, we must subscribe to learning about, understanding, following the habits and teachings of, and honoring Jesus Christ. To have loyalty and faith in our selves, we must learn about and be true to ourselves and how we can be the best we can be.
It seems me that our relationship to our self must be a nourishing and supportive one in which we develop our mind, body, soul and be true to the type of person we want to be.
Loyalty to self also means treating yourself like you want to be treated. Christianity says do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Let me add to that: “Do unto yourself that which you want others to do unto you”.
Understanding the concept of loyalty to self also causes self reliance and builds the necessary understandings why others will give you loyalty. There’s nothing like first hand experience to build understanding. Much follows from the Chinese proverb ”I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
If loyalty is an illusion, it may be because we are not being loyal to our true selves as individuals.
In connecting loyalty to faith, I used Christianity as an example. I did not mean to ignore other religions. Christianity is just the religion I’m most familiar with. Christianity is also a major pillar - belief, faith, ethics - of Western Society confirmed through the Treaty of Nicaea in 325 AD uniting the Roman Empire and the Christian Church.
Jesus Christ is known as the Prince of Peace. But what of business in this peaceful paradigm? Does business practise peace? Most books I read on corporate business consider business as war, or at least competition. These books write about defeating the competition and using military style tactics. Is this peaceful?
How can you be Christian in your religion and use warlike practices in your business and business relationship? How can you expect loyalty if you are not going to use the practices of peace?
I believe that small business owners can be peaceful if they are true to themselves and to their beliefs. The Sales Processes that I have suggested in earlier articles all emphasize relationship, dialogue, understanding and helping. What can be more peaceful?
Peace is about loyalty to ourselves, to human well being, and to our relationships. Peace starts by awareness and self awareness and builds with practise as we ”become the change we want to see in the world” (Gandhi) and as we practise our religious faiths not just teach them and try converting others.
Loyalty to customer
A single sales transaction, no matter how relationship oriented, probably won’t inspire long term loyalty or repeat business without follow up. From a business point of view, the relationship sales transaction acquires a lot of information about the customer and over time about all your customers. What you do with that information can create interest in your business and at least give you the ‘first foot in the door’ when the customer want to buy something or is talking to a friends about products-services that your business has.
How do you create, pass on, or get passed on ‘word of mouth’ information? What do you with all the accumulated information from customers and elsewhere from yourself and your staff? Does it get lost in the shuffle? Can it be put to good use? These are marketing questions. Marketing is about getting and keeping customers, and I will cover this topic in the next set of articles.
When was the last time you telephoned a customer WITHOUT trying to sell him-her something or to respond to a complaint? If you never contact your customers other than for a sales call, how do you expect loyalty? Why do you expect a relationship?
Loyalty to Employees
We live in a ‘free country’. Why then do so many businesses treat their employees not much better than paid slaves? As long as the relationship is largely one way (i.e. pay for work or pay for hours put in), you are unlikely to have loyalty. Your employee will leap at the next best opportunity that comes along.
What can you, as owner do? Not much unless you establish a relationship with the employee. That relationship needs to be based on dialogue - a lot of listening - and asking the employee how you can help them - much like a Relationship Sales Process.
Helping employees achieve their personal goals (indeed helping them to think about their personal goals) creates a partnership that will translate into more customers for your business. It’s funny how most businesses look at their employees from a COST perspective. But consider the value of a relationship-marketing oriented employee from a REVENUE perspective.
Big business attempts loyalty through benefits and salary. It considers employees as a resource not a partner. That’s why these companies have Human Resource departments. These departments are not about people; they about filling positions. That’s hardly relationship.
Small business owners have the opportunity to build one on one partnership with their excellent employees. These relationships will help you expand or franchise the business. These relationships will give you needed reliability and a consistency of excellence that will be profitable and enable you to delegate responsibility so that you can have a balanced life.
What stops us from actualizing and partnering with employees is fear. The fear that we will somehow lose control and lose business.
Future articles:
Partnering with employees
The Marketing Plan - Getting and keeping customers
The A to Z of Small Business Sales Loyalty Part 3 Loyalty to Customers Employees and Self - To learn more about this author, visit Norm Tucker's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
In Part 2 of Loyalty - Loyalty Starts With People, I suggested that loyalty could not be bought; that loyalty needed to be earned every day through relationship; that without loyalty to your self and the experience gained from self loyalty, you probably won’t have the experience necessary to understand the concept. I also quoted John F. Kennedy - "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
What is loyalty?
According to my Webster’s College Dictionary, loyalty is a state of, or feeling faithfulness. Faith is well known in the religious context and from following religious rules such as the Ten Commandments. In North America, we live primarily as Christians, under the doctrine of Christian rules many of which have now been scribed into our secular constitutions and laws.
What is loyalty to self?
To have loyalty and faith as Christians, we must subscribe to learning about, understanding, following the habits and teachings of, and honoring Jesus Christ. To have loyalty and faith in our selves, we must learn about and be true to ourselves and how we can be the best we can be.
It seems me that our relationship to our self must be a nourishing and supportive one in which we develop our mind, body, soul and be true to the type of person we want to be.
Loyalty to self also means treating yourself like you want to be treated. Christianity says do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Let me add to that: “Do unto yourself that which you want others to do unto you”.
Understanding the concept of loyalty to self also causes self reliance and builds the necessary understandings why others will give you loyalty. There’s nothing like first hand experience to build understanding. Much follows from the Chinese proverb ”I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
If loyalty is an illusion, it may be because we are not being loyal to our true selves as individuals.
In connecting loyalty to faith, I used Christianity as an example. I did not mean to ignore other religions. Christianity is just the religion I’m most familiar with. Christianity is also a major pillar - belief, faith, ethics - of Western Society confirmed through the Treaty of Nicaea in 325 AD uniting the Roman Empire and the Christian Church.
Jesus Christ is known as the Prince of Peace. But what of business in this peaceful paradigm? Does business practise peace? Most books I read on corporate business consider business as war, or at least competition. These books write about defeating the competition and using military style tactics. Is this peaceful?
How can you be Christian in your religion and use warlike practices in your business and business relationship? How can you expect loyalty if you are not going to use the practices of peace?
I believe that small business owners can be peaceful if they are true to themselves and to their beliefs. The Sales Processes that I have suggested in earlier articles all emphasize relationship, dialogue, understanding and helping. What can be more peaceful?
Peace is about loyalty to ourselves, to human well being, and to our relationships. Peace starts by awareness and self awareness and builds with practise as we ”become the change we want to see in the world” (Gandhi) and as we practise our religious faiths not just teach them and try converting others.
Loyalty to customer
A single sales transaction, no matter how relationship oriented, probably won’t inspire long term loyalty or repeat business without follow up. From a business point of view, the relationship sales transaction acquires a lot of information about the customer and over time about all your customers. What you do with that information can create interest in your business and at least give you the ‘first foot in the door’ when the customer want to buy something or is talking to a friends about products-services that your business has.
How do you create, pass on, or get passed on ‘word of mouth’ information? What do you with all the accumulated information from customers and elsewhere from yourself and your staff? Does it get lost in the shuffle? Can it be put to good use? These are marketing questions. Marketing is about getting and keeping customers, and I will cover this topic in the next set of articles.
When was the last time you telephoned a customer WITHOUT trying to sell him-her something or to respond to a complaint? If you never contact your customers other than for a sales call, how do you expect loyalty? Why do you expect a relationship?
Loyalty to Employees
We live in a ‘free country’. Why then do so many businesses treat their employees not much better than paid slaves? As long as the relationship is largely one way (i.e. pay for work or pay for hours put in), you are unlikely to have loyalty. Your employee will leap at the next best opportunity that comes along.
What can you, as owner do? Not much unless you establish a relationship with the employee. That relationship needs to be based on dialogue - a lot of listening - and asking the employee how you can help them - much like a Relationship Sales Process.
Helping employees achieve their personal goals (indeed helping them to think about their personal goals) creates a partnership that will translate into more customers for your business. It’s funny how most businesses look at their employees from a COST perspective. But consider the value of a relationship-marketing oriented employee from a REVENUE perspective.
Big business attempts loyalty through benefits and salary. It considers employees as a resource not a partner. That’s why these companies have Human Resource departments. These departments are not about people; they about filling positions. That’s hardly relationship.
Small business owners have the opportunity to build one on one partnership with their excellent employees. These relationships will help you expand or franchise the business. These relationships will give you needed reliability and a consistency of excellence that will be profitable and enable you to delegate responsibility so that you can have a balanced life.
What stops us from actualizing and partnering with employees is fear. The fear that we will somehow lose control and lose business.
Future articles:
Partnering with employees
The Marketing Plan - Getting and keeping customers
The A to Z of Small Business Sales Loyalty Part 3 Loyalty to Customers Employees and Self - To learn more about this author, visit Norm Tucker's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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George LudwigGeorge Ludwig is a recognized authority on sales strategy and peak performance psychology. An international speaker, trainer, and corporate consultant, he helps clients like Johnson & Johnson, Abbott Laboratories, Northwestern Mutual, CIGNA, and numerous others improve sales force effectiveness and performance. Though it's George's strategies and processes that help corporations increase productivity and performance, it's his tremendous energy and dynamism that spark the transformation. Again and again, clients remark on his amazing ability to unleash human capacity and inspire men and women to break out of their comfort zones. The result is a whole new type of salesperson. His customized presentations teach achievers to make stunning advances in their lives. From helping salespeople realize cherished dreams to helping corporations exponentially accelerate revenue streams, George Ludwig leaves audiences and individuals empowered, emboldened, and clamoring for more. George is the best-selling author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking the Sales Code and Wise Moves: 60 Quick Tips to Improve Your Position in Life & Business. - Visit George Ludwig's Website |
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