Monthly Archives: June 2014

LASER FOCUS – TGIM

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THANK GOD IT’S MONDAY. T.G.I.M.

Laser focus is great, unless the focus is off.

We are focused on creating the best customer experience they have EVER received.  We lean on core values to BE GREAT!  BETTER > BIGGER.

Store leaders:  You are the advocate for the customer.  Watch for opportunities to surprise and delight them!  Your role: coach, educate, support and encourage your team.

Coaches:  Help make decisions that are best for the customer, your team, and the company.  Help your team use the processes and procedures in place.  Be confident making good decisions based on the core values.  Escalate problems that you don’t feel comfortable making to the store leader.  Not so they can make the decision for you, but to HELP you make the best decision for your team.  Use core values to lead the way.  Communicate, change, grow and learn best practices to your team and beyond working with your team and others to grow.

Account managers, cabinetry and floor salespeople:  You drive the revenue and profits.  You are our internal customers, our goal is to make your life easier so you can sell more and see more customers’ EYEBALLS.  You hold the relationships and are the key ingredient to our customers.  Don’t ever take that lightly.  We need you to use the procedures and processes so you can get out and see customers and make everyone’s life easier.  Work on taking care of problems and escalate to store leaders not so they can decide for you, but to help you make the best decision.   Sell with price integrity. Sell with confidence.  Be humble and grateful for every order you get, they decided to buy from us!

Everybody (including me):  We make everything work.  We might not get the glory.  We are the guts.  The offensive lineman.  The grease.  Without us there is no Drexel.  It is up to us to BE GREAT or NOT.  It’s our choice every day if we are inspiring ourselves, our teammates, and our customers.  Be a beacon of positive energy, let others feed off your spirit.  Work on making procedures and processes a habit; that will help reduce mistakes and allow us to help others as we grow!   Make your internal customers (account managers, cabinet, and flooring people) happy.  If there is conflict or problem take to your coaches, or escalate to your store leader, or me and we can help you make the best decision.

99% of any breakdown in focus is due to lack of communication.  Communicate to be great!  Ask if you need help or don’t know your focus.

This is YOUR company, not mine.  We’ve all decided to be GREAT years ago; I can never thank you enough for that.

BE GREAT TEAM!  GO DREXEL.

– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is the president & Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam.com).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.  He has provided solutions for builders and their clients since 1996 and a whole bunch of other stuff that you probably don’t care about.

 

 

 

 

PEOPLE BUY FROM EYEBALLS

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People buy from eyeballs.  Or the more common phrase is “people buy from people.”  I think quite often with the ease of communication (not the lack of, but the ease of) we forget this.  Especially when we are busy.

When we lose a job around here quite often I hear it is price.  Or more often I hear nothing… we just lost it.  And sometimes it was a customer that we thought was “loyal.”   And you know what?  Quite often WE get upset at the customer!  Shame on us, like they have to buy from us!  How we forget the customer gets to choose the relationship NOT US.

When you dig deeper you almost always find out the customer hasn’t seen their salesperson in a long time… a real long time.  They couldn’t SEE their EYEBALLS.  They will never tell you, “hey you need to be my friend.”  They will never say, “I need to see you.”  YOU need to make that happen.

Voice mails, phone calls, texts, and e-mails are all super for speed and efficiency.  And we think “hey, look at me, I am taking care of my guy whenever he calls.”  But you know what?  People buy from FRIENDS.  Not e-mails.

Be careful texts, phone calls, and e-mails can be a trap.  While the 1950’s three martini lunches are a thing of the past, building relationships might SOUND old school, but that is THE ONLY WAY to build and retain customers.  Giving your customer PRESENTS and just be there friend. Maybe a 3 martini lunch is EXACTLY what your client needs!  DOING THINGS WITH THEM THAT THEY LIKE TO DO  IS A GREAT WAY TO GET BUSINESS.  Actually, it’s the best way!  Take time to be with them.  And then look em in the eye ball.

So this week, go through your accounts and rank the last time you saw that person and had a good talk with that person face to face. Then start working at the bottom of the ranking. I don’t care how big or small  they are  but make a point to go look at them in the eyes.  Or I will bet you they will be looking at your competition’s eyes really soon and spending there money there.  Don’t be surprised when it happens if you haven’t taken the time to look ’em in the eye.

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Bonus tip:  If you are an outside sales person:  LEAVE THE OFFICE.  Your inside sales team and delivery team (or whatever team depends on you) depends on you for sales.   So leave.  Go.  Visit.  Look em in the eye. You think you are “helping” your inside team by not delegating and doing the work yourself.  WRONG.  They are counting on you TO LAND JOBS.  Or they themselves might be out of a job.  They WANT you to leave and make revenue for the company.

Being on a bidders list is NOT THE GOAL.  Sending over more quotes to people YOU WOULDN’T KNOW IF YOU SAW THEM IN CHURCH is WRONG.

Try this: At 3:30 or 4:30 or whenever you are wrapping up your day instead of saying, man I work hard, I am going home to mow the lawn or make dinner or work out or dang just chill, make ONE MORE PHONE CALL for the NEXT day.  Schedule your NEXT DAY, TODAY.  And make it for someone you haven’t seen in awhile, make it for a face to face meeting: breakfast works great!  I am 100% confident your sales and quote to order ratios will improve significantly!

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– Joel Fleischman.  Joel is the president & Head Coach of the solution providers for Drexel Building Supply.  (drexelteam.com).   You can follow him on twitter:  @JoelmFleischman.  He has provided solutions for builders and their clients since 1996 and a whole bunch of other stuff that you probably don’t care about.