Archive for category: Floyd Jerkins

Coaches Corner v.10.20.2022

Learning Without Scars is pleased to present the next installment in our series, Coaches Corner. Please feel free to click the link to read the welcome post authored by Floyd Jerkins.

Coaches Corner v.10.20.2022

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Can You Improve Your Employees’ Psychological Income?

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins continues his series on customer service with part 3: Can You Improve Your Employees’ Psychological Income?

One of the most profound human characteristics centers around our need to be appreciated. When we are in a relationship where we feel appreciated and valued, our self-esteem rises, and we are much more open to making changes and being part of a team. Leaders know this and work to create an environment for people to be recognized.

Employees need economic income and psychological income. To reach peak performance, both are needed to have balance in life while the business pursues high profits. When employees enjoy the economic portion, a question is how much more commitment could they make if they had the psychological income to match?

Managers Becoming Experts in Finding the Things That Go Wrong

More often than not, managers are on the job to find the things going wrong and fix them. Many become experts at this. One of the most serious challenges in motivating people is that over time if all they hear are the negatives, it breeds a less than average mindset or one that goes all out to protect themselves from ridicule. It’s hard to build a team of high-performing champions if all they hear is what they are doing wrong all the time.

The “emotional bank account” is a theory and a practical application. The theory suggests that the more deposits you make into someone’s emotional bank account, their self-esteem increases, trust builds and makes them more open to changes. You are overdrawn in the account if you don’t make purposeful deposits. The person then closes down and isn’t up for much of anything because they are always suspicious of your motives. The practical application is to be well invested in the emotional bank account with your teams through your leadership and communications style and the consideration you show.

Catching Team Members Doing Something Right

Many times, all a leader hears in a day are the negatives. Some staff will bombard you with every negative there is. As a leader, you are often the center of communications, and this can become draining if you don’t frame these issues correctly.

This is one of the biggest keys to making happy employees. As a leader, we often forget to praise someone when they do a great job. Our heads are into other business-related issues. I don’t bet but only on sure things. And I’ll bet your business has all kinds of positive service points of contacts every day. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t last long in the business. Do you see them? Can you make it a daily practice to praise your staff when they perform the correct customer service behaviors you want to see?

A client of mine owns a few McDonalds. They installed the “thank you” process. Each employee was to say thank you when another employee did something for them, or they witnessed a fellow employee performing an uncommon act of service. All the managers started the process weeks before they rolled it out with all the staff. My friend said it was amazing how quickly this caught on and the improvement it made to the attitudes of the staff. It became contagious.

An example from another client. If an employee goes over and beyond to help a customer or assist a teammate, they will get a “good job card” with their name on it at their monthly manager’s meeting. These cards can come from managers, other employees or from customers telling management. They then would get to put their cards into a box. The manager would draw a card out of the box with a name on it. That person would then win a gift of $100 in value. A few of their people didn’t care about getting a card until they saw the same people winning. Then they joined in by trying to go over and beyond at customer service or helping another teammate to win. It became contagious.

Strategy to Make Emotional Deposits: The Magic of Dimes

Business owners go to great lengths and expense to recruit and hire the right people. I’ve always wanted people who worked for me to come to work and enjoy what they are doing.

As I mentioned in this article’s opening lines, we all have basic human tendencies. As a leader, we can nurture people through our leadership style and grow the talent we need to continue to achieve the goals and mission of the company.

Try putting ten dimes in one pocket and moving them to the other pocket one at a time with each positive message you give to someone throughout the day. The idea is to try and break old habits, and I am sure that is what many of us have. How many dimes do you have at the end of the day? Track this for a couple of weeks; you’ll be surprised. If you do well, you will also notice a change in the people around you. It is magical.

You can’t be fake about this, nor be insincere. Remember, in the absence of leadership; people will follow the strangest things. With leadership, ordinary people can do extraordinary things.

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The Wonderful World of Disney – Customer Service on the Front Line

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins tackles how customer service looks when it is done with exceptional skill in this week’s guest post “The Wonderful World of Disney – Customer Service on the Front Line.”

Disney has been in the news recently. Some would say for the wrong reasons. One thing that has been true for decades is they deliver outstanding customer service. Disney provides millions of people every year with an experience of a lifetime that keeps customers coming back generation after generation. You can’t fake that level of excellence and customer service.

A good friend of mine just returned from taking his family to Disneyland for the fourth time. Of course, I love to hear his stories about their family experience, but it also piqued my interest in “how are they doing”; with their customer service.

Customer retention is more important than ever in all businesses as we find ourselves in an increasingly competitive world fighting for a piece of market share and the customers’ wallets.

Disney is an excellent model to consider because of the high loyalty level among its guests. They serve as a guideline for anyone who wants to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The Red Zone

Walt Disney said, “Just when everyone is saying how great you are is when you’re the most vulnerable.” At Disney, it’s known as the Red Zone. Every business that gets positive feedback from customers regularly can quickly become complacent. Something changes when you get all the right people in the right positions and things go smoothly. Many businesses feel like they are unstoppable. That’s the reality of running any business.

The problem is that in any short two-month period, you can have a lot of things go wrong that probably set you back six months or even a year of growth. It could be just a few little things, but it still causes plans to slow down or stall completely. This shows that being prepared all the time for the unexpected is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. Arrogance and complacency can cause a lack of attention to detail. Keeping your front-line people focused isn’t always easy, even in the best of times.

Who is Your Competition?

According to Disney’s philosophy, anyone that raises your customers’ expectations is a competitor. That is really true and something many think little about. If someone likes how they get treated buying a car or new home or getting their dry cleaning done, how can your team help the customer feel even better when dealing with your business?

The customer compares you with all other businesses they deal with. We are all competitors when it comes to customer satisfaction. Every front-line person must realize that every interaction they have with a customer forms an impression at that point of contact, or touch point as I call it. Not every other one, but everyone. The customer leaves that interaction with being, in the simplest terms, mad, glad, sad, or scared.

The customer doesn’t just look at the product when making a purchase. They rate the way they are treated on the phone, the invoice accuracy, the follow-up when they inquire with a question, the warranty claims procedures, and the list goes on and on.

Some internal customers look for and expect the same attention and focus as external customers. This is an important point to remember in any business. How often do we take a customer for granted and just think he will buy from us again? How often are you surprised that one of your front-line people suddenly quits?

Conduct the “How Are You Doing?” Test With Internal Customers

Disney isn’t unlike many other retail businesses; they make every effort to implement common sense practices. It’s always easy to say any business could adopt these practices, but that’s not true. As I’ve often said, common sense isn’t always common practice.

Leadership and cultural components impact the ability to implement these practices, and consistent communications are needed to sustain them. When it comes together, it’s like magic and full of possibilities. A major essential item is to take the time and effort to look at things from your customer’s perspective. Creating purposeful internal communications and setting the correct behavioral expectations doesn’t just happen by chance.

When in your weekly department meetings, ask the question, “How are we doing?” I know that is a pretty broad question but start the conversation about what people are hearing about your organization during their business transactions with customers. Also, ask what they overhear in a conversation between two customers or a group of customers. Begin asking for feedback from each team member; what in their opinion can we improve or what are we doing right? Create the entire list of items, then pick the top two or three that you could improve on and discuss how you can improve as a team. Give yourselves some timelines to see these issues resolved. Gather the successes and discuss the achievements at the same time. Never let the number of flaws outweigh your accomplishments.

Personal Development is the Key to Organizational Development

I contend that when you hire good people in a growing organization, you can generally find a role for them. Hiring front line people who want to learn is easily identifiable. Remember, personal development is the key to organizational development. If they don’t want to learn, how valuable is that person on the team?

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Relationship Selling: Nine Tips & Strategies on Handling Incoming Sales Calls

Guest writer Floyd Jerkins closes his series on relationship selling with today’s blog post on nine tips and strategies on handling incoming sales calls.

The radio newspaper was invented in 1939. The idea was that a radio transmission would transfer the newspaper to the device in your home, which would then print it out on a nine-foot role of paper, which could then be cut or folded. Each page would take 15 minutes to transmit, which seems slow in our age of instant news access, but in those days was probably considered revolutionary. It didn’t ever really catch on, but it probably had a bearing on later inventions, such as the fax machine.

The telephone has proven to be one of the greatest inventions ever made but I guess it is a lot like the radio newspaper, if it’s not used right, it is just another device. We are in the “let your fingers do the talking” generation. Customers want to save time and money, so they start making calls seeking information before the make a purchase. Salespeople many times don’t handle these incoming calls as true lead. This misjudgment costs the business thousands of dollars every year. They can be as valuable as a walk-in customer if you handle it right.

Common questions customers ask when calling in:

1. What do you have?
2. How much do you want for it?
3. What is your best price?
4. How much is mine worth?

A salesperson can quickly gather information as well as give it on the call. Many calls I’ve heard had the salesperson answering every question the customer asks without gathering information to help them understand the customers buying patterns. The salesperson can control the call by just asking qualifying questions.

The goal is to give and get information.

It’s important to be of service to the customer, but also to yourself. Giving out your entire inventory list with pricing doesn’t build value, especially if we are talking about used products because there is no way to compare apples to apples. Find out why they called your business, when are they thinking of buying and other qualifying questions. Asking for the customer’s name and contact number is a fundamental goal. It’s all when and how you ask that makes a difference in the customer’s perception of whether you are helping them buy or if you are trying to sell something.

Nine Tips & Strategies on Handling Incoming Sales Call

1.) Take the Customer Out of the Market and Into Your Business

The overall goal of the call is to schedule an appointment with the customer. You want to take the customer out of the market and into your business. That’s where the money is.

In some instances, the customer may be calling from outside your trade territory. That does not mean they aren’t a buyer. And I get it, there are some sales made over the phone. I am more referring to what happens most of the time.

By planning ahead for your response to each of the common customer requests, you can improve your effectiveness and make more money.

2.) Answer With a Warm Friendly Greeting

Ok, I know that sounds so cliché, but have you called into a business and the person answering the phone just woke up? Or you called, and it sounded like you intruded on someone’s day? The tone and inflections you use create impressions about your business to the customer.

A warm, friendly greeting starts a positive impression of you and your business. When it happens, it is noticeable and can stand out among the prospects other calls where they experienced much less. When it’s positive, it’s the best way to engage a customer on the phone. Think back to the last few places you called. What did it sound like? How did the sound of their voice make you feel about wanting to spend your money with that business? Make no mistake about it; it does make a difference.

3.) Thank Them and Introduce Yourself

In today’s market, customers can buy the same product from five different places or, in some cases, order it and have it delivered to their front doorstep. The key is to make yourself and your business indispensable. Be the resource your customer wants to seek out.

Make a professional introduction of yourself to build rapport. Speak slower than you might in person. Over the phone, there are distractions. Use your full name vs. just your first name.

4.) Get the Customer Excited

Now, this doesn’t mean you pull a Tom Cruise on Opera’s chair. It means that you sound like you interested because you are, right? You want to make more money. You want to create more customer goodwill for your business.

Treat this call just like the customer was in front of you.

Thank them for calling and do that with a positive expression. Listen carefully to what they are saying.

If you are distracted for any reason, don’t take the call. Customers can tell when you are not listening to them. Don’t answer the phone when preoccupied with other thoughts or activities. If you can’t concentrate on giving the customer your full attention, let someone else handle it.

5.) Take the Incoming Call Seriously

Take notes, be a professional, and show the type of consideration you would like to have when you call a place of business searching for a product.

Eliminate distractions and noises so the caller can hear you. If you have loud background noise, recognize that to the customer. You know they can hear it, so recognize it.

6.) Qualify- Take Control by Asking Questions

Don’t let the prospect maintain control with constant questions. I can’t express this enough but learn to ask good questions. I’ve witnessed many salespeople taking these incoming calls only to serve the customer but never win themselves. The goal is to give and get information. If you give out your price list or tell them everything you know, what reason do they have to come to see you in person?

Can you seriously appraise their trade-in without looking at it? I know it’s being done, but I also know it’s a stop-gap measure that can easily spiral into more time and energy to make the deal work when you look at the trade-in real life. I’m talking about high valued trades, not a throwaway product.

Use questions and phrases such as: “What’s that worth?” “Anything wrong with it?” “This equipment will sell for…” “What budget or payment range are you looking to stay in?” Use “availability” rather than “inventory.”

Don’t ask questions like what do you want for it, or what do you need for it? It opens you up for negative questions. Every customer will tell you how great their trade-in is even when it’s not.

7.) Take the Customer Out of the Market and Into Your Business

The goal is to take the customer out of the market and into your business. Schedule an appointment so that you can be of service to them. Imagine if you looked ahead on your calendar for the week, and each day you had 3-5 appointments? Sure, not all of them will show up, but if 80% do, you will have a higher closing ratio of appointments vs. just guessing when they will come in.

8.) Get the Name and Phone Number of Every Prospect

What is the “sales goal” of the call? Is it to give the customer all the information they want and make the customer happy, only to get off the phone and not know who you were talking to?

If you ask, you will get, if you don’t, you won’t. The first rule here is to always ask, but know it is how and when you ask, they determine your success.

You may encounter the customer who won’t give you, their name. Now, think for a minute. If you were the customer under these circumstances, why would you not give them your phone number? I realize there are exceptions to this statement, but more times than not, it is because you didn’t earn the right to get their name.

Can you show enough value, “over the phone” to achieve a higher margin because your business demands it? Yea, some sales are made over the phone but more are not.

Maximize every opportunity! Ask for referrals. I’ll talk about this in a future article.

9.) Use Professional Sales Language and Approaches

Be careful about using industry jargon. What are customary descriptions to you may not be to your customer. You also don’t want to “low-ball” a customer. It’s simply another word for lying just spelled differently. Never lie just to get them in the door, but don’t tell them all the truth to keep them out, either. You won’t win a lot of poker hands when you show people your cards!

You are a professional, so talk and act like one. Prepare questions ahead of time, so you know how to navigate a call like this vs. winging it. Good questions lead to a close.

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