We all get excited about new features and a new application. We understand what it feels like to do things more efficiently, we even get why we would invest hours upon hours in learning an application, because in the end the job we do every day IS easier.
With Customer Relationship Management sometimes we must teach the human process first.
Consider this story:
"Maybe you’ve heard of Joe Girard. He’s listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Greatest Salesman.
That’s quite a claim, but in Joe’s case it just might be true. All by himself, he sold more cars per year than 95% of all the dealerships in North America. And he did it for more than a dozen years in a row. In fact, he consistently sold more than twice as many cars as whoever finished second.
So how did he do it? Well, one thing he did was to apply his Law of 250. Girard believed that everybody knew about 250 people. If he could get everybody he came in contact with to remember him and recommend him to their friends, it would expand his marketing efforts 250-fold.
Joe committed himself to staying in touch with every lead, prospect, and customer he had ever acquired. He did it with greeting cards. He sent out over thirteen thousand cards every month, each of them personally signed. He mailed them in plain envelopes, always a different size or color, so that nobody would think they were junk mail.
So did it work?
Well, he’s in the Guinness Book of World Records, isn’t he?
We have it a lot easier than Joe did. We don’t have to send out cards every month. We don’t have to spend money on postage. We can't send our prospects seven or eight e-mails in the course of a year, maybe one or two clippings that will be of interest to them, and maybe two or three greeting cards.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re dealing with moms and pops who are buying cars or tax preparation services, or if you’re dealing with senior executives who are placing million dollar contracts. People like to do business with people they like, and if you pay attention to them on a regular basis, they are more likely to like you. The point is to stay in contact, maintain rapport, and keep our customers thinking of us."
This was written by Tom Sant, who is the author of Persuasive Business Proposals and the forthcoming The Giants of Sales. And brought to my attention by Michael McLaughlin's Blog Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants. Michael is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, and the coauthor of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants.