Selling Surrounds and Follows Selling

Reading Russ Tate's post, "Think INSIDE the Box", on how companies can use workplace optimism as a competitive advantage, reminded me of another post on another blog I read recently, where the blogger was lamenting the poor customer service he recently received, especially in light of the recent economy and how every customer should be highly valued.

The post was followed by 20+ people adding their customer service horror stories. Customer service reps reading off the script, regardless of your level of knowledge. Some of the posts named the companies doling out the rude service, which I'm sure Google will be happy to index.

As a 'marketing for sales' company, Atomic Ideas helps businesses sell more stuff through their marketing and sales efforts.

But truth be told, whatever part of your business comes in contact with a customer - whatever a customer touches, tastes, sees, hears - that's selling. And that translates to how the customer will feel.

Your level of customer service is selling after the sale. And it's one of the biggest determinants in a second sale. Volumes have been written about customer service. And yet...

The way you invoice is selling.

The way you ship your product in a box is selling. How the directions are written for the product is selling. Crappy directions raise blood pressures (Imagine if you're selling blood pressure monitors).

Your clean trucks are selling. So are your dirty trucks, with your logo prominently displayed under the dirt.

Your lobby is selling. Even your bathrooms are selling. There's an “America’s Best Restroom" Award, sponsored by Cintas, www.bestrestroom.com.  Any restroom in the United States that's open to the public is eligible. (Smart sponsorship, Cintas, you "facility services that includes keeping restrooms clean" company, you.). When's the last time you enjoyed a company's bathroom? Go to any restroom that made the top ten list and you will.

This liberates the idea that selling resides in the sales department. I've often used the sales quote, "The salesperson brings in the first sale, the company brings in the second".

Social media is all the rage, yet that's just one area of a person's life that comes in contact with your company. The key is to know all the times a customer bumps up to your brand.

Those bumps have been called 'touchpoints'. What kind of 'touchlist' would there be at your company based on those touchpoints? How long would it be? How many departments and employees would be on the touchlist? If an employee is on the touchlist, they're in sales.

Along with employee optimism, there's your other competitive advantage - knowing that any and all customer contact is a sales opportunity, to help you sell more stuff.

Comments

[Gene Brady]

Oh, the irony, Russ! A flooring retailer selling you on making your home look nicer. It's more of that looking INSIDE the box, getting your sales story right inside your company with your people and your processes (and your bathrooms...!)

[Russ]

Outstanding post Gene. There is no question that everything a company does is selling! You reminded me of a flooring retailer we used to work with. They had all this beautiful flooring in the showroom trying toconvince people how beautiful they could make a customers home, yet their bathrooms were as plain and nasty as those you would find in any other store. The first thing we asked them was why. They had two rooms people used on a regular basis that could have been showplaces to sell more stuff... Here's the knd of bathroom you could have in your own home. They were "floored" that they hadn't thought of that. Truly an Inside The Box moment.