Is Duplication The Answer?

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:53:45 +0000

Last Sunday I was sitting in church thinking about network marketing. (I know, it was wrong in so many ways.) I was thinking about the concept of duplication. Most Network Marketing companies teach duplication. It is the concept that explaining your business must be so easy that an eight year old can do it. You may be the worlds greatest salesperson, and sponsor all kinds of people into your business. Yet, if those people are not able to do what you do, then your organization will never learn it themselves and your organization will be very shallow. I know duplication is so important in my company, SendOutCards that I have taught it to my 10 year old granddaughter.

The lesson in church that made me think about duplication was around the discussion of Christ being crucified on the cross. I thought, he could have easily split the skies open, made the earth to shake and turned all the Roman soldiers to dust. He was the same Christ who calmed the roaring seas and healed the sick. Yet, maybe the reason he died on the cross was because of duplication. He knew that we would have a hard time with that earthquake thing and He wanted to show us that we all could do exactly as he did, die and rise again. Thus, duplication. I got the message, how about you?

Don’t tell the boss about this!

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:03:57 +0000

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Try this experiment for more business!

admin — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 16:48:52 +0000

Are you looking for more business? Try this experiment. Pick a day next week, like tomorrow. Call it Phone-A-Thon day. Start at 9:00am and start calling every customer that you have ever had or hope to have. If you have employees, let them help you. Make it a big deal and buy the pizza for lunch. Say this to their voice mail or live. “Hi, _____. I was thinking about you, wondering how you are doing, and thought I would give you a call to say hi.” That’s it, just like you would call any friend. Don’t even put the phone down, just keep dialing.

I can guarantee you one thing. This will help your business more than anything else you can do. Try it and let me know the results. Scared of cold calls? That’s OK. These are warm calls to people that know about you. Try it, you may even grow to like making these calls.

McD’s gets the Dunce Cap!

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:50:03 +0000

The Dunce Hat has to go to McDonalds. For the past 10 years since presenting customer service programs, I have been keeping track of how many times my order is wrong when going through a drive-thru at a fast food restaurant. You know the ones I mean – where you pull forward and wait when you just ordered 2 hamburgers and a fry. The current percentage is 68 percent of the time, something is wrong with my order.

I still have the hamburger where they forgot the meat. (Amazing thing is that it looks the same 6 years later. Not a speck of mold.) My wife doesn’t like cheese, so when I say no cheese, all those speaker boxes must transmit is “Cheese.” With all my grandkids, my orders are usually rather large, but I still pull over and lay everything out on the seat and check it all. I’ve learned to dread those words uttered in an insincere manner, after going 3 miles back, “Sorry about that.”

I include Arby’s, Wendy’s, KFC, Hardee’s, Fazoli’s in my calculation along with McDonalds.. The error figure has never dropped below 50%. None has ever been 100% right. McDonald’s scores the worst. At one time McDonalds put a sticker on the bag that said, “Double checked for accuracy.” That lasted about 6 weeks and then disappeared.

It’s amazing that we still go back to a business that screws up 68% of the time. Glad it’s not my bank or airline!

Your thoughts?

The Donut Story

admin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 19:35:30 +0000

Several years ago when we owned a printing company, I decided to do something different for my customers. I found someone who had a company that would deliver a dozen donuts to offices for $5. including the donuts. I gave him a list of 250 businesses and told him to deliver 10 per day. After about two weeks of these deliveries, I thought it was strange that no one had called me about the donuts. So I started calling the list and asking them if they got the donuts and most coldly said yes and thanks.

Finally one guy I called, said he really appreciated the donuts, but that they were rock hard and had to be older than day-old donuts. He said I must really be getting a great price on the donuts. His employees were worried about breaking a tooth! Needless to say, I immediately fired the delivery guy and started delivering fresh donuts myself.

Not sure of the moral to this story except to be more aware that your marketing is really doing what you expect. Do you have a moral?

OK, This is way too cool!

admin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:22:16 +0000

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Business Growth Tip #17

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:27:21 +0000

Sell to those who already love you! Why waste your time trying to sell a Ford to a Chevy driver. Why spend your time trying to convince a Democrat that you are right if you are Republican. If all the current Ford drivers went out and bought a new Ford or all the Republicans would just go vote, Ford would be super successful and one party would have it made in a coming election. Simply reach out and touch those that already love you. Constantly be reaching out and touching those who already love you and what you do. Regularly search through your database and figure out who needs a call, an email or a greeting card. And do it often.

I recently read an article that quoted a study that said for every month that goes by, a customer becomes 10% less loyal. That means if you haven’t touched your customer in some way for 4 months, they are only 60% loyal. (Easily stolen by a competitor.) I can’t find the article now as I would love to research the topic more, but the stats aren’t what is important. Common sense says it is true.

As the old saying says, “stick with who brung you to the dance.” Just make sure you tell them how important they are to you and DO IT OFTEN in every way you can. Not bad marriage advice as well. 100 Tips in 100 days.

Business Growth Tip #16

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:51:33 +0000

Remember as a kid, you had to learn information and you used flash cards to get the information into your brain. You hoped the information would stay there until the final exam. In his book, Little Voice Mastery, Blair Singer talks about using flash cards as a way to overcome objections that you hear from your prospects. I’ve used this tecnique in the past with great success.

My daughter who was studying for a college exam used this system to learn all the bones of the head. She had my granddaughter who was in Kindergarten help her with the flash cards. One day my granddaughter annouced to her kindergarden teacher that she knew all the bones in the head and proceeded to tell her all the complicated names of the bones. It’s a powerful learning tool. Needless to say she shocked the teacher.

List every objection that your sales staff or you receive from prospects on the flash cards and then work with someone on how to answer those objections. Practice makes perfect! As you practice, you’ll notice the hesitancy goes away and handling those objections will be no big deal. 100 Tips in 100 Days

Bet you do have time!

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:55:17 +0000

There is no such thing as “I don’t have time!” unless you are dead or on your death bed. This is an excuse. The proper statement should be, “This is not a priority in my life.” If your family was kidnapped and you had to do a task to free them, would you have enough time to do it like in a recent movie I watched? You CAN find time for anything.

We are all given time to do practically everything. We choose which things are priorities and dedicate time to those tasks. Next time you catch yourself saying, I don’t have time, stop and think. This must not be an important priority.

Couldn’t find the stupid baked beans!

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:25:09 +0000

Today at the grocery store, the cashier asked, “Did you find everything OK?” My response was that I had several problems finding everything. All she said was “Oh” and continued checking me out. She never brought up the topic again and was probably sorry she ever asked the question. She was simply repeating a matra that she probably learned in her training rather than a sincere interest in me as her customer.

She could have easily offered an apology followed by a solution for the next time I visit the store. The old sales technique of Feel, Felt Found could have been used. “I’m really sorry you had a problem. I know how you feel. I felt the same way before I came to work here. What I found was the more I visited the store, the easier it became to blah, blah, blah.”

What you say isn’t near as imortant as the fact that you are listening and communicating with a customer.

What do you think?