Category Archives: Habits

I Hate the Word Customer

One word you won’t  hear me use is “customer.”  Just the sound of it makes me cringe and sends shivers down my spine.  It should make you feel the same way and I’ll tell you exactly why right here.

Customer Concept

My mom used to say, “Hate is a strong word Zachary.  You really don’t hate something.”  She is right, but I do hate the word customer.  Here are four reasons why:

  1. Customer – sounds and feels cheap
  2. Customer – is transactional and might as well mean one and done.  Wham bam thank you ma’am.
  3. Customer – means nothing long-term to me.  I’m not interested in short term relationships.
  4. Customer – every time you think of using this word, please substitute the word “client”

As a community, we are in search of clients and client partnerships.  Customers are expensive with your most valuable asset, time.  Investing a great deal of your time in a “customer” better yield a very sustainable profit opportunity.  Otherwise, I suggest we shift our mindset to prospecting, pitching, winning, and servicing the hell out of clients.

After asking a few people about the word customer, one popular response I received is, “What about companies like Apple, Amazon, and Zappos?  They rave about customers.”  I’ve read a great deal about product evangelists and to me the terminology and mindset screams client to me.  Repeat buyers focused on attributes outside of just price alone as a differentiator.  These legendary companies listen to the challenges their clients present in their lives and the provide solutions to solve them.

All that said, how will you know when you’ve found a client and not a customer?

Client relationships aren’t one-sided and demonstrative.  This is extremely important.  A great client relationship should feel good in your gut.  Each of you have something to benefit from the solutions you’re providing.  A client relationship will be open and share valuable information with you and your team.  This information will guide your focus on the client’s KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and plans to continually move the business forward.

The number one element of a great client relationship in my mind is the presentation of new challenges from the client.  This is what I live for.  Give me or my team the opportunity to help the client ease a pain, fill a need, or monetize an opportunity.  Bring it on!  Clients will challenge, customers will demand.  Customers will brow beat, throw a fit, curse your services, or tell you how lousy something is working.  This equals ZERO motivation and sometimes distain for the relationship.  Clients understand your value and will challenge you like a great coach working to get more out of his star talent.

ACTION ITEM:  Change your mindset today and stop using the word customer.  Today you will start looking for and working tirelessly to serve CLIENTS.  It’s much easier to grow the business you currently service than to always be relentlessly be focused on a new customer every day.  Keep them coming back for more!

3 Tips to Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile

Linkedin-LogoLinkedIn is a wonderful resource for anyone with a B2B relationship and specifically a selling relationship.  As a person with many personal connections I have the opportunity to research more about my peers, prospects, or clients, and I have the opportunity to showcase my talents and priceless recommendations.

My frustration with LinkedIn is the lack of quality content I see on many profiles.  Therefore, I put together three helpful tips I use to fill any holes and maximize all the social network has to offer.

Tip 1 – Have a Complete Profile.  I’ll keep this one extremely simple.  If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile and your income relies on relationships, get your butt in front of a computer.  Invest 30 minutes to get your profile up and running.  NOW.  If you love video tutorials here is a helpful one on setting up a LinkedIn profile from Tracy Repchuk.

If you do have an existing profile I suggest getting the profile up to speed with accurate info and a great description of your skills and passions.

Tip 2 – Ask for Recommendations.  This tip is one I consider to be widely underutilized by account people.   There are typically two main reasons I find why there are either very few or no recommendations on a profile.

The first is fear.  Fear of asking a client for a recommendation.  You’ll notice I specifically said client and not: buddy, friend, spouse, or relative.  I’m not interested in your buddy Ted who works in accounting recommending you because you two share beers on Friday night.  I’m interested in a client who invests money with you.  Future clients will use this as they asses risk of investing time, energy, and money with your firm and more importantly you.

The second and extremely sad reason could be a brutal truth.  Your work doesn’t warrant a recommendation.  If this doesn’t get you fired up I’m not sure what will.  You’re following this blog and reading this post because you’re committed to getting better.   Use some of the other teachings in this blog (Saturday Text & The Power of an Agenda) to make an impact in your client’s business right away.  You’ll feel great reading the words of your first recommendation.  Embrace the challenge.

Lets take a turn away from negative town and look at what happens when we’ve “earned” the right to ask for a recommendation.  Earned is important contextually.  I don’t recommend “begging” for a recommendation.

Let us look at what success should look like.  You’re doing great work, producing results, taking care of your client, and you have a strong client relationship.  Asking for the recommendation is digital payoff to the time and effort you’ve invested in the relationship.  Make the ask and please make it sincere.  Do not use the lame context provided to you from the good folks at LinkedIn.   Reference a recent accomplishment or pat on the back the client gave you.  It will add relevancy and likelihood the recommendation will be written and written well.

I’m extremely visual so it’s time to put my money where my mouth is.  Here are a couple of my own personal recommendations I’ve earned over the years.  If you want to read more I invite you to visit my LinkedIn profile.  These will lead nicely into the third tip.

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Tip 3 – Utilize Your Recommendation(s).  You’ve done the hard work, you made the ask, and you received a wonderfully written recommendation.  BOOM!!!  A touchdown dance is in order.   A personal favorite is a nice heel-kicker to celebrate.

In all seriousness, think about the magnitude of what just happen.  Someone out there seems to think you or your team is a big asset to their operation.  Now who might want to see such a thing…?

How about every prospect you speak with in the next 5 years!

It certainly isn’t the first thing I’d showcase when pitching a solution, but if account service or referrals are ever asked for, you can be johnny on the spot with personal recommendations.  Each recommendations comes custom made with a story of: who is the client, what was their challenge, and how you/your team helped the client specifically achieve their objective?  There couldn’t be a better setup to tell a story.

ACTION ITEM: Make use of at least one of the three tips below.  I don’t care if you’re starting on #1 or #3, just start today!  In the next 90 days commit to getting through point #3.

Tips:

  1. Ensure you have a complete profile
  2. Ask for recommendations (earn the right)
  3. Utilize recommendations

We Are What We Consume

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and thoughts.

Have you heard of the documentary, “Super Size Me?”  In it, Morgan Spurlock submits his body to eating only McDonalds for one year.  If the thought of this doesn’t make your colon quiver, it will once you lookup the documentary.  Yuck is an understatement!

Most of us wouldn’t dream of eating McDonalds every meal for one year straight, but I’d like to take a look at what we consume from a mental perspective to challenge your thinking.  Many a study are published every year with new “super foods” to add to our diet.  When we look back at making real change in our diets it usually involves: eating more fruits/vegetables, limit red meat, eat more chicken/fish, drink a lot of water, don’t over-consume alcohol, etc.  I’m sure I’m leaving something out, but you get the idea.

USDA_Food_Pyramid

Lets turn the tables now to look at what we consume from a mental and thought perspective.  How healthy is your mental diet?  Again, how HEALTHY is your mental diet?  In order to best understand our mental diet I’ve chosen to relate it to the timeless food Pyramid pictured here on the right.

When I think of my mental diet I think of the following elements I choose to consume daily:

1. Podcasts (Fruits) – I’ve got six to seven I subscribe to and listen to almost weekly.  They challenge me to think about my: finances, new strategies, marketing, and of course sports (Dan Patrick Show).   I listen to these in the car and while doing household chores.

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2. Audiobooks (Vegetables)- I’ve got about 10-15 audiobooks I listen to frequently because every time I listen, I learn or implement something new into my life.  I grabbed a snapshot of a few of them for you as well to show you I mean what I’m saying.  It’s at the bottom of this post as I’ve run out of room here.  Like my podcasts I consume these in the car, working out, or while doing household chores.

3. TV Shows (Fats/Oils/Sweets) – I do watch TV and I can’t tell you a lot of it is real solid “learning material” but that’s ok.  We can’t all be on 100% of the time.  My wife and I have a few shows we watch together (Parenthood, Modern Family, and Homeland).  It’s a great way for us to connect.

4. Books (Meat/Protein)- I found this link very interesting: The Average CEO Reads 4-5 Books Per Month.   Do the math people.  That’s over 50 books a year.  How many of you have read 50 books in your life?  There are reading lists everywhere.  Start now.

5. Relationships (Bread/Cereal/Rice/Pasta)- This is the last one on my list and most likely the most over looked consumption medium.  I know a guy who was a completely different person based on the people he was around 5-6 years ago until a friend called him out on it.  That guy was ME!  Choose who you look up to and associate with carefully.  Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”  Relationships are what we consume the most of on a daily basis and the bottom of our mental consumption pyramid.

Lastly I thought I’d share a list of all the opportunities we have on a daily basis to make ourselves better.  Look at your day and tell me you don’t do one or more of these activities: exercising, eating breakfast, during a commute, in the shower, during lunch, cooking, doing household chores, flying/travel, gardening, and brain-numbing television.  YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!

ACTION ITEM:  Don’t try to eat the whole elephant.  What I mean is, don’t go off on an over consumption strategy.  We know from diet studies this doesn’t yield positive results.  Studies show goals are reached with the creation of really good habits.  Create a new mental consumption habit and fuel your hungry mind with challenging new practices and techniques.  With every day that passes, you’ll be laying the groundwork for a Keen Mind.

 

As promised here is a quick look at the audiobooks I mentioned above and a list for you to consume.

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The Saturday Text

This is pretty simple but it remains a practice I utilize today.

saturday

I frequently work with clients whose business is retail sales.  That said, Saturday is always a big day for them.

One of the early practices I adopted was to email or text the general manager or owner the morning of their busiest day of the week.  I believe this accomplished a couple very important stamps in my client’s memory.

First off, I wasn’t just an 8 to 5’er, Monday through Friday guy.  I was invested in my client’s success and they were going to know about it.   Certainly they weren’t going to forget our team or me any time soon because I do this on most weekends.

Secondly, how many other vendors or partners were emailing or texting their client on Saturday?  The answer is easy, not many!  Elite people take actions the average will not.

If you’re stuck wondering what to say don’t over think it.  Examples of what these emails/texts could say are:

  1. Thinking about your team today and the numbers you’re going to do. Crush It!
  2. Looking forward to your team having a big day today.  I’ll be sure to follow up on Monday
  3. What’s the sales objective today?  Anything I can do to help?
  4. If you have access to client CRM and campaign data this one is REALLY AWESOME.  Make note of a specific customer or customers names where opportunities exist or appointments are scheduled.  Your client can’t even get his own people to do this!

A Keen Mind is about winning, creating a winning mindset, and by all means not taking average actions.  This is not an average move.   This simple tactic will position you as a true asset in your client’s mind.

If you think you’re immediately too busy for this activity, this blog isn’t the place for you.  I wish you the best.  Enjoy the Saturday morning cartoons because you were too busy to make an elite effort.

ACTION ITEM: The next opportunity you have, reach out to one of your clients via text or email on a Saturday morning.  Do not take more than five minutes.  Let them know you care.  If you get some feedback please share it with the tribe via a comment!

Golf and Digital Marketing

I tweeted the following recently:

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I’m a decent golfer but not great.  I’m a 7.9 handicap.   I love working on the game but there in lies one of my biggest challenges and hence my tweet.

I practice, but I don’t know the right way to practice or the right drills to do while practicing.   I hit balls and I hit more balls.   Some hook left, some down the middle and some slice right.

I’ve recently learned this professionally as I’m extremely interested in the divergence of social media into the core of our marketing plans.  My immediate challenge like golf, is where to start learning and how do I implement.

ACTION ITEM: Find a coach, or program, or a process to get better.  Likely this will come in the form of a monetary investment AND a time investment.   If you really want to get better, you will pony up for both.