Don't be this salesman

On Christmas Eve I drove to Best Buy to get myself a Christmas present, a sound bar for our TV.  I had done some research and had two model numbers written on a piece of paper that I was interested in.  Soon after walking into the correct department a young salesman asked if he could help me.  I asked him to show me my first choice of a sound bar which he did.  However, almost as soon as we got to it he began telling me the flaws in that model.  That surprised me a little as it had been one of the highest rated sound bars on the Best Buy website.  He offered to show me a better one in the same price range which turned out to be my second choice.  After spending a couple of minutes telling me about its features I told him I would take it.  He then told me he didn't think they had any in stock!  He spoke with another salesman who came over and told me they had just sold the last one earlier in the day.  Of course, he offered to order one and didn't seem too pleased when I told him I could order one myself.

It being Christmas Eve I wasn't bothered by the fact that they had sold out of that model.  What was so bad was that no one even asked if I would be interested in the first one I had looked at or another one in the same price range.  Why in the world would the salesman try to talk me into buying a different sound bar than the one I asked about knowing that they didn't have any in stock?  I drove one hour to that store with the intention of spending $300.00, and I walked out of the store with that $300.00 still in my pocket because two salespeople do not have a clue how to sell.

Sales is difficult enough without talking yourself out of the sale.  It is one thing to try to talk a customer into an upgrade.  If he or she is not interested you can always return to the item they are interested in purchasing, but to lose a sale trying to make a lateral sale is stupid.  A smart salesperson would have affirmed the positive qualities of the product I asked about and sold it to me.  If there were no positive qualities about that product then, first of all it should not be carried in the store, and secondly he should have pointed me to a product they actually had in stock.

Some might be wondering why I didn't ask about buying my first choice after the one was not available or why I didn't ask about other models that were available.  I considered it, but I don't feel it's my job to train the salespeople at Best Buy on how to do sales.  By the end of the week I will be in a different city near me with many stores like Best Buy and I'll buy my sound bar at one of them.  That store will get my $300.00.

Would your salespeople know how to have handled this potential sale?  Why don't you run this scenario by them and see how they would have responded?  You may need to do some training of your own if they don't respond properly.

The power of a dream

Although I don't watch every episode I do occasionally enjoy watching Shark Tank.  The people who often have the greatest success on that program are people who have had a dream and have worked hard to see it happen.  They are on the show in hopes of getting the financial backing to take their dream to the next level.  Some have described enormous sacrifices they've made as they have pursued their dream.  These stories resonate with the sharks because they've been where these hopefuls are now.  Although I don't know the stories of all the sharks, the ones I do know are stories of sacrifice, hard work, and a refusal to quit.  Their dreams were bigger than the obstacles they were facing which allowed them to continue until they became quite successful and wealthy.  When someone comes on the program with a similar story that rings true, and has a dream that can succeed, that person usually walks away with one of the sharks investing in their dream.

When we think of powerful dreams the first person we often remember is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because of his famous I Have a Dream Speech.  Even now one cannot hear that message without feeling the power of his dream, a dream which he was totally committed to seeing occur even at the cost of his life.  As a graduate of Liberty University with two degrees from that school I think often of Jerry Falwell's dream of starting a university for Christians that would compare with any other university in the world.  Starting very humbly in classrooms in his church that school nearly closed in the early 1990s due to finances.  His dream refused to allow Falwell to give up, and today over 92,000 students are enrolled in their residential and online programs.  It has 253 undergrad programs of study and 87 graduate programs.  Barbara Corcoran, one of the sharks I referred to above, was a straight D student in high school and college and had 20 jobs by the time she was 23 years old.  But, she had a dream and borrowed $1,000 from a boy friend which she turned into a real estate business which she later sold for $66 million.

What is a powerful dream?  John Maxwell defines a dream as "an inspiring picture of a future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it."  Each of the persons mentioned above had such a dream driving them to succeed.

If you own a small business you probably started it with a dream of doing something different with your life.  One problem with dreams is that sometimes in the course of everyday business the dream gets lost and forgotten.  When dreams are forgotten they lose their power to compel us to do our best every day and we begin to accept mediocrity.  Such mediocrity will never allow us to see our dreams fulfilled.

As we enter into a new year this is a great time to revisit your dreams.  What exactly do you want to accomplish with your life and your organization?  How are you going to make a difference in 2013?  Be very clear with your response, and you may even want to print it out and frame it so you can keep it in front of you every day as a reminder of why you are here.

One final thing should be said about dreams.  Not all of them are equal.  Many who go on Shark Tank leave disappointed because they could not getting backing from any of the sharks.  Some had not thought through their dreams to determine if there was actually a need for their product or service.  Some of the dreams are, frankly, rather foolish and not deserving of a person's efforts.  John Maxwell wrote a very helpful book to help a person evaluate his or her dreams that I would recommend as you examine your own dreams.  It's called Put Your Dream to the Test: 10 Questions to Help You See It and Seize It and can be ordered by clicking on the title.

This will be my last post until after Christmas so let me wish each of you a very Merry Christmas!

Don't treat everyone the same

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In every company there are some people who rise above everyone else in their work ethic, their sense of knowing what to do, their attitudes, and their ability to execute.  Even if you have an above average team in your company, there will be a few shining stars who helps raise that average even higher.  These people are critical to the long-term success of your business, and it will be a mistake to treat them the same as everyone else.  There are so many things a business owner cannot control, but one thing he or she can control is the development of the people in the company, and these star employees need to be developed.  Providing them with the right resources will only make them even more valuable to your business.

These are the people you want to invest a significant portion of your time in through coaching and training.  A company I worked for would pay the tuition for any employee to go to college as long as the course even remotely would benefit the company.  They defined that benefit very loosely, and they paid all my tuition while I earned my undergrad degree.  A small business might not be able to do that, but most could offer at least some financial assistance to their star employees.  Owners would want to seek nearby seminars that would help their best employees learn new skills.  Top employees should also be cross trained so they can learn the various jobs that exist in the company.

Top performers should be rewarded differently than other employees.  They should receive higher pay raises and larger bonuses.  Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan, in their book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, explains that "When the wrong people get rewarded, the whole organization loses.  Problems don't get fixed, nonperformers get ahead, and the good performers start looking for jobs at places where their contributions will be recognized."  You are under no obligation to pay everyone the same or to give all your employees the same bonus.  It's your money.  The only people who will get upset if they are not treated "equally" are the lower-performing team members.

Speaking of lower-performing team members, they need to be treated differently as well.  Every six months Barbara Corcoran of Shark Tank would fire the lowest performing 25% of her real estate sales people.  While that may be extreme, their lack of success does need to addressed quickly by the owner.  It may be that they are were not hired for a position best suited to their gifts, or they could need additional training, but the cause of their poor performance needs to be corrected or they do need to be replaced.  In today's business economy no small business can afford to have a group of people who are not producing.  They are not only a drain on your bottom line; they are also a drain on your top performers.

Treating all your team members the same is not an issue of fairness and only your less productive employees insist on everyone being treated "fairly."  In fact, it is unfair to your top performers to treat them the same as you treat others on your team.  Even worse, it is very de-motivating to do so and will soon cause them to either leave you for another employer or begin to function as the lower performers.  Either way, you lose.  Invest in your top performing employees and your business will reap the rewards for years to come.

Firing customers

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When I owned our heating and air conditioning business we had a customer who owned a number of rental properties.  He had used our business even before I took it over, but he often complained about our work and especially our prices.  Nearly every bill he received sent him into orbit.  One day he came into our office yelling at our office administrator about the bill he received and promising to never do business with us again.  When I went to the office later she was still upset.  I explained that I hated to lose a long time customer too, but we would probably be better off without the drama his business always created.

A few weeks later I answered the phone, and it was him calling about an apartment that needed the HVAC repaired.  I reminded him of his outburst the last time we did work for him and told him I was under the impression he was not going to use our company any more.  He gave a nervous chuckle and responded that since he had used us for so long there wasn't any sense in calling another company now.  I thanked him for that but then explained, "We will be glad to do business with you, but we will not tolerate any more outbursts like the last one.  We have always been fair with our pricing to you and always will.  If you have a question about a bill you receive from us, please call me about it, and as long as you are reasonable in the conversation then I will be glad to talk with you.  If you get out of control like I heard you did the last time I will hang up and we will never do another job for you.  Are these conditions acceptable?"  He said they were; we did the work he asked us to do, and he never again complained about any of our work or our bills.

Running a small business is tough enough without having to deal with unreasonable people.  I gave him a second chance only because he had been such a long-term customer.  There were others we simply refused to do any further work for after our first encounter with them.  Their expectations were unreasonable and their attitudes were toxic.  Trying to collect the money they owed us was often a challenge.  They were exactly the kind of customers we were glad to see our competitors have.

When someone is starting out they are afraid to turn away any business.  That is understandable, but it's not healthy for you or for your company.  Such clients will often cost you more time and money than what their business is worth, and they will stop doing business with you if they can save a nickle by patronizing your competitor.  If you find someone consistently complains about your product or service, wants you to lower your prices, and expects you to provide him or her with priority service over all your other clients you have a customer that you probably need to fire.   Chances are you'll see little difference in your company's bottom line at the end of the year, and you'll find that operating your business is a lot more enjoyable once the're gone.  For more about the dangers of being too loyal to the wrong customers be sure to read my e-book Mistakes: Avoiding the Wrong Decisions that Will Close Your Small Business.