Can you hear me now?

As a hobby, I am a woodworker.  I have learned to build fine furniture, jewelry boxes and a wide variety of other wood projects. I’ve even done some custom commission work and made decent money for doing so.  Someday I’ll get some pictures of my work on my site so you can take a look at my work.

Yesterday, I was down in my shop working on a shelf for the patio and took a look at my tools and other things in the shop and wondered which were the most valuable.  I actually have several thousand dollars worth of woodworking machinery and hand tools.  I’m pretty proud of my collection.  I couldn’t decide between the top two so it ended up being a tie for first place.

What would you guess I chose?  Was it my cabinet saw, router, planer, workbench or any of my hand tools?    My cabinet saw is definitely what I use them most and if you were to survey woodworkers about the most valuable tool, the cabinet saw would win, hands down.   What But that’s not the case for me.
The two items have a combined value of $30.  One is my safety glasses and the other are my hearing protectors.  Why am I telling you this?  Because I believe the two most important selling and marketing tools are closely related to my choice of shop tools.  In sales and marketing, your eyes and ears are the most important tools.

A 1972 UCLA study concluded that the words we say account for 7% of our overall communication!  The other 93% of our communication is non-verbal and consist of body language and voice quality.  Now you can see why I chose the tools that protect my eyes and ears!

Your eyes allow you to read the body language and emotions of your customer.  You can see if you are connecting with them or if you are boring them.  Are they engaged with you or just being polite?   Your ears allow you to hear voice inflection and tone.

Can you read or have you ever studied body language?  Crossed arms and legs reveal the other person is closed to your comments or you.  A person leaning back with arms behind the head is saying “Oh really, prove it!” Someone leaning forward is engaged and interested in what you are saying.

Entire books have been written about the topic and can help you, not only in sales and marketing, but also in personal relationships.

Understanding body language can mean a huge difference in your sales.  The scope of this issue goes way beyond this newsletter but if you would like to know about some of my recommended resources, give me a call or send me an email.

We’ve all heard the cliche that God gave us one mouth and two ears so we can listen twice as much as we talk.  Well, there’s a reason it’s a cliche – it’s true, particularly in sales. You will only know what benefits to stress when you understand your client’s needs.  How can you propose a solution if you’ve done all of the talking?

Listening is an art.  A key listening skill is to avoid formulating a response until you finish listening to what your client is saying.  Notice I said listening, not hearing.  Ask your client or prospect to clarify and elaborate be sure you are answering the question they asked.  Avoid interrupting, unless it enhances or clarifies the topic.

Think of how frustrating it is for you when someone interrupts you in the middle of a sentence or answers your question with an irrelevant answer.

Remember the E.F. Hutton commercial years ago?  Their USP was that when E.F. Hutton talks, people listen, inferring their advice was more valuable than you could get elsewhere.  Just think about that, their sales soared because they said YOU should listen to THEM!

Dean Whitter countered with Dean Whitter grows one client at a time, meaning they took the time to listen and take care of you before they moved on to the next client.

As you look to improve your selling skills and learn new methodologies or new concepts, remember that the things that can make the biggest difference is how effectively you read the body language of your client, how effectively you use your own body language and finally, how well you listen.

Do your client’s miss you? You must keep in touch with them!

Is this you? Staring out the window, hoping a client will appear over the horizon with loads of cash in their hands ready to fork it over to you? Do you wonder where your clients have been? For most business owners, the answer is yes. The reason is they’ve done nothing to create a relationship, let alone nurture one.

Just think about it. How often does any business you patronize ask for your name? What is the chance for them to develop a relationship with you if they don’t even know your name?

They spend tens of thousands of dollars in advertising to get new customers. They are out in the yard digging for bones when all they need to do is wag there tails and show appreciation to the person who gave them their last one.

They are ignoring a key marketing concept, Life Time Value (LTV). The LTV looks at the value of a client over the lifetime of the business relationship. Here’s a simple formula to calculate LTV:

What if the average dog refers one other neighborhood dog per year who becomes a loyal client? Over a twelve year period, the potential value of one happy dog can exceed $25,000!!! Can you see why it makes sense to spend $20 per year to strengthen relationships with existing clients.

Keep in touch with your clients. They do want to hear from you !! Ask them to return and to buy from you again and again. It’s that simple. Get their names and develop relationships with them. You need to do more than throw them the occasional bone or table scraps.

Here are some things the pet boutique can do to cement a bond with their furry clients:

• Send a coupon for a pampered pet day.
• Send a special treat on their birthday and monthly pet care newsletter.
• Take their picture and hang it on the lobby bulletin board. Use the picture to create custom post card appointment reminders.
• Send the dog’s family birthday cards on the family birthdays..
• Hold a “Where’s Fido?” month to ask back the dogs who quit coming to see you. Put a treat in a special envelope addressed to the dog and say “I miss your wagging tail and cold nose. Please come back in to see us.”
• Hold a special human training days where the dogs’ owners can learn how to take care of them.
• Have a pet art show. Hire a caricature artist to draw caricatures of the dog and their owners. Sign them with paw prints.
• Create a pet blog where your clients can share the funny and cute things their owners did.
• If you hear a client has died, send their owner a sympathy card.
• Get a welcome board to welcome all your clients by name on the day of their session. Their owners will say “Look, Sparky. There’s your name on the board!”
• Have a pet Halloween costume contest. Charge a $10 admission fee with all proceeds going to the local animal shelter. Invite local media. Find local celebrities that love animals and ask them to be celebrity judges.
• Call to confirm appointments.

The list of possibilities is endless. Notice that the cumulative cost of my suggestions is probably less than $10 per dog per year! Now, if your pet groomer did these things, would you look elsewhere for grooming services? You’d even pay them a premium.

Not in the dog grooming business? Well, there’s good news. Humans also like to hear from you. Before you say, “It’s expensive to keep in touch with all of my clients,” be sure to calculate the LTV and the cost to acquire a client. You may think good service is sufficient to retain clients but, in today’s world, good service is the minimum to BE in business.

There are many inexpensive and simple systems to maintain client contact. Topping my list of recommendations are newsletters and greeting cards. Here is an automated greeting card system I use and recommend. Email is easy but the odds of it being delivered and read keeps decreasing and dogs have a hard time with keyboards.

Your competition is sniffing the air and putting out plenty of treats to convince your clients and prospects to switch over to them. It is up to you to build an invisible fence of loyalty around them. You can help to insure that your clients will give your competitors a “slight correction” if they try for the business!

Client loyalty is not a mystery buried in the ground with old bones. It requires quality products and service and regular communications from you to let your clients know you appreciate their business and want them to buy from you again.  If you forget this critical concept, you can plan on always sniffing around the neighborhood, forever looking for your next client.