Sales by 5 Blog

Knowing When It's Right - Fitting the Culture

We've recently been interviewing students and new graduates for our coveted summer internship position.  You might be shocked at what you see.  We would ask questions and get a response like "yeah" or "uh-huh."  Some were chewing gum, had no eye contact and exuded entitlement, while others had sub-par email skills.  Today, we got what may be our winner, Bobby.  He was well dressed, had a great (one page) resume that gave us more depth into his life, spoke clearly and had a well written introductory email. 

We have a very special culture and guard it highly.  What if he doesn't speak to a client respectfully?  What if he drops the ball?  What if an email of his unsells?  We realized, though, that the culture of the organization is not only something to be defended, but it is also provides protection.  The culture doesn't allow for these things to happen.  Every new person is directed to the brand promise, core values and purpose of Salesby5.  Additionally, questions are welcomed hourly!

So, if communication is sub-par, a team member is on it to clean it up and explain how to avoid this in the future.  If a customer is not receiving the proper attention, someone else helps give them the right touch.  Everyone is concerned about keeping our quality at an extremely high level in communication and service. 

Now, let's say you start getting used to this and then you go to a doctor's office or a business who still thinks it is 1980.  They believe they are special, when they are really a commodity. It makes us appreciate what we do, how we do it, and how we'll never go back. Our culture and attitude is the salt and pepper of 2020. Call us and see!

We have serious fun at work.

Ten Days to Selling More with Less Effort - Living It!

Yesterday: Great stories start inside the company and go out. Great stories capture the hearts of people including buyers, prospects, and even cold leads.

Today: Living It! "It," is your product or your service.

A few years ago I walked into a nice department store, I wanted to buy nice shoes and a nice suit. The man, a "fashion adviser", selling the suits and shoes was dressed in an  unattractive suit and bad shoes!  His credibility was lost because he wasn't living “it,” so I didn't buy anything from him.

Here's a story from our friend and former intern, Carlton Douglas.  We were blessed to have him and we're proud to know him.  Carlton "lives it" and we could feel it when we hired him. Here's his story, in his own words. 

From the Desk of the FORMER Intern

I logged onto the website to get the address of Sales By 5 for a resume (I’m trying to get a Promotions Manager position at Indie 103.1 here in Los Angeles). Seeing the familiar SB5 color scheme and then Erik and Nan’s video posts, my mind jolted back in time to the months in which the company employed me.

Some people feel like crap thinking about past jobs. I, too, have a few of those jobs, but Sales By 5 wasn’t horrendous enough to make the list. In fact, it was the best job I’ve ever had. Out of everything it taught and reinforced in my working behavior, the most important was that I could do anything. ANYTHING. I don’t mean that in a sappy, Reading Rainbow way, either. If someone asks me to do something, the truth of the matter is that I can do it… if I want to do it.

Present Day: I’m in Hollywood. That’s pretty cool. I met a guy on Sunset Blvd. and La Brea, Antonio, whose brother writes music for Lil Bow Wow. He hooked me up with these guys who do just about everything in music business – booking, management, PR, and pretty much anything else you can think of. I snag a short gig doing miscellaneous work for them.

I get a call the night I might them telling me to get them a list of all of Whitesnake’s managers and label affiliations since the mid-70s. I tell them that it’ll be done by morning - without a doubt. Then, I realize that its one in the morning, and I’m still too poor to have Internet access at my apartment. I don’t want to disappoint these guys, so I proceed dialing every number in my phone to get some help, but everyone is asleep. Just great! Thirty minutes later, I remember that I have web access on my phone, and I’m off searching through Google to find almost 40 years of management and label information about a band I’m too young to care about. By four in the morning, my task was complete, and I had impressed guys who would end up giving me a few more gigs.

Hopefully that sounds impressive to you. If not, you should give it a try. On top of doing the research, try it ON A CELL PHONE! It was the Sales By 5 attitude I had embraced that got me through this trying task.

My first day on the job, Erik had me figuring out where to get beer bottles with custom labels, filled with beer of course. Oh, and it wasn’t just your average Sunday afternoon football 24 case of Budweiser. I needed to find 1,000 bottles! Google was always my friend, but I wasn’t that great at it. Erik tosses a few pointers my way, and I’ve got at least 10 options in front of my face in 5 seconds. I never knew that being a Google Master could be so beneficial to your career!

Six months after last stepping into the office, I still use my Sales By 5 learned abilities. It wasn’t that one instance in which what I learned while working with the company helped me out. Most recently, I wrote up a bio for a country singer at the request of Shakira’s former publicist – using a similar format to press releases done for SB5. She wants to give me more work! I “marketed” myself to a wealthy jazz enthusiast, who heard me playing sax on Hollywood Boulevard, about financing the recording of a jazz album. He’s digging the idea.

Sales By 5 didn’t change my life. My life had yet to begin before working with them! Things are beginning to take off, and I can credit so much of that to this company.

Erik & Nan -keep your eyes on the mail. Your million-dollar check will be there soon enough.

Carlton D.

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Do you see the difference between living it and just going through the motions?

Ten Days to Selling More with Less Effort - Day 5 - Get People Talking

It’s a fresh week and a fresh start. Today it is about your story. Do you provide something that gets people to talk? Talk positive? When I get excited about a product or service that surprises me, I talk about it. I know that this is not common for 100% of all people, but it is significant! Consider the food you serve, your customer service, the way you answer the phone. What is special?  Insurance is a commodity and there are more agents, in my opinion, than there are buyers. My agent with State Farm always knows my name and always helps me in minutes.  They never need to call me back, as they are working on my request in seconds! Other companies I deal with that are small or large have entangled voice mail systems that scream "go away and leave us alone!" So today, find your WORD OF MOUTH, or WOM and exploit it.  Here are some ideas so you can get people marketing for you.

1.  Take 4 different company owners or decision makers, that you do business with, to lunch this coming Friday and have them meet each other- be the catalyst for the introductions. Make yourself the expert in putting people together. What does that do for business?

2. Find a company you want to work with, shop them or find their biggest problem and solve it, then go to them with the solution to the problem.

3. Find a company that needs help and help them find the help!

4. Always deal with fact and never assume!

5. Ask for what you want!

Summary: Find what you can do that people will talk about. People will talk no matter what, so give them something to talk about. Ten years ago, it was ties for me, before and after I dressed in very bright colors.  In college I wore florescent t-shirts. Today, no ties but bright shirts. This is one of many things, but SalesBy5 stands out in any crowd! What can you do by 5PM today to make people talk or make people want to talk about you, your service or your product?

Ten Days to Selling More with Less Effort

1.  What is it like to try to do business with you? Are you making it hard or easy? Are you inviting or un-inviting? It does not matter who you are in your organization- the CEO or the call center rookie. Call your business or have a friend call, while you are on speaker phone.  Have them ask for you.  Have them ask what the company does.

2.  Do you feel welcome, wanted, invited and/or appreciated?

3.  If you bought the product or service and called back for help, do you feel they would help you?

4.  Connect to the service department. Do you get a human?  Schedule a service call to your home address and see how long it takes to make the appointment or get service.

5.  Connect to the customer service department. See if you get a human and then describe your problem. What happens?

6.  If you left a message, how fast does your call get returned and how appreciated do you feel?

Recently, I started calling the service department of auto dealerships and other higher priced items, to shop in advance and see what happens when a sales person promises me a benefit. I want to know if it is true. This is my reason to believe they can deliver. I called three car dealerships when I experienced a problem with their largest competitor and acted like it was their car. They were ready to take care of me in moments. My dealership was not, as it was governed by rules that were perfectly suited for 1971 communist Russia. Many companies will promise you a rose garden, but today, it is easier than ever to smell them before you buy them.

Check out Seth Godin's riff about voice mail.

photo by lawgeek - flickr

From Housekeeping to the CEO - Communication is Key

Returning calls and emails in a timely fashion makes a difference.  People take ignored communications personally.  By saying nothing, people think you don't care about their opinion, you disagree with what they're saying, or you dislike them.  It is up to you to manage expectations.

It is easy to stand out.  Be quick with your responses, no matter who you are.  You have a cell phone with text messaging or email.  What's keeping you from being a great communicator?  Put numerical precision to it - Who do you need to call or email back within the next 10 minutes?

Hire the Right People, Use Less Rules

This morning I dropped off my dry cleaning, with a coupon.  This evening, I picked it up.  On the way home, I noticed that I had not received the proper pricing so I returned, receipt in hand and requested an adjustment.  The gentleman responded “Sorry, nothing I can do.  Only the manager can make that adjustment.”   Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a complaint about my dry cleaner.  During the normal course of business, my dry cleaner must have been de-motivated by an F Player who did the wrong thing.  In response, they added a rule they thought was correct, but that makes their customers lives more difficult.  What if we all worked harder on hiring smarter and applied only a handful of rules Give your employees and your customers the benefit of the doubt and fire those that don’t deserve it.

Action item: Give your people a numerical precision element of empowerment. For Example, "You have $50.00 to do with what you need in the best interest of our customers and company." If your company has core values and a purpose, this will work. If it has neither, it may be a problem and you need to call us at 210-403-3916 now to fix your values and purpose.

Check out Seth Godin's similar riff regarding answering the phone.

A Good Attitude vs A Remarkable Attitude

If you ask most people, they would probably tell you they have a good attitude...and they're probably right.  The difference between good and great can really by understood when things don't work out as planned or when you feel someone has wronged you.  These are the situations that truly speak to your character and your attitude.  Do you rise above and still have a great attitude or does all the goodness quickly fade?  These situations allow you to either brand yourself as having a great attitude or one that is just good.  And guess what? a good attitude is salt and pepper.

What does this have to do with sales? E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G

Is the Face of Your Company a Hidden Hero?

Today it hit me! Kya has been with us just over a month and by absorbing our culture and asking many questions, she is our new star at SalesBy5! She recently learned about a customer of ours who had an employee that was a real hero - Willie. Willie's manager, Kim, told us the story of what he had done, on his own, to solve a large problem at an office building - working late into the night with no request to work past 5 PM. Willie not only did this, but did it with his awesome attitude and a smile. The tenants entering their offices the next day were unaware of any problem, all thanks to Willie being the company hero.

Kya heard me tell the story to all of us at SalesBy5, then found a opportunity to nominate Willie for a Hidden Hero award through the national organization City Year. Willie was awarded the Hidden Hero for 2008.  The point? Willie is the face of the company yet he doesn't own it, manage or run it. He is a building engineer and he is not average! Willie is loved by the tenants and his attitude is contagious to the people that work with him.

People quit people and people are hired by people; companies merely exist. What can you do to make sure your "faces" are the shining stars in your company?

Update: Seth Godin and team have set up a lens to celebrate your heroes for charity!

Put a Face on Your Company

I have been dealing with a large retailer to purchase computers for us and our clients for years.  Recently, a quick phone call to them connected me with a great rep named Eric.  I give him the details of what I need and he finds me the right computer, points me to coupons and tracks the purchase.  Eric transformed this company from a faceless corporation full of drones into "the place where my friend Eric works."  He cares about helping me get exactly what I need - fast!  Now I recommend Eric to others, his company happens to be included in the sale. Who are the stars that are the face of your company?  Do you have potential stars in the waiting?

Remember, every interaction is a chance to sell or unsell.

How Are You Branding Yourself?

We all have a personal brand. Using you natural strengths is the best branding message you can convey!

I love it when I meet people and they own a BlackBerry.  I never let them walk away without offering to install Viigo (a fantastic Mobile RSS reader), Google Maps and Beyond 411.  Typically, they are shocked that these amazing applications are free.  I've often received emails a few days later thanking me!  I don't charge for this service, it's a free prize inside for knowing Salesby5.  It brands me and our company as tech-savvy and high value. 

The value I give is not forced, it is something I must do. It's received as a gift, but really it is my gift to be able to share. What are you doing to share your strengths, your brand, your value?

Tell us in the comments what you do to gain mindshare as high value.