When in doubt, be honest

I am sure my blog title today caught some people off guard. Surely some of you are saying "but Mike, isn't honesty always the best policy?" Aren't we taught, since childhood to always tell the truth? Y'know, George Washington and the whole cherry tree thing? First, the whole cherry tree story, is not true. it's made up, or if you prefer, it's a lie. The most ironic factor is  the story was created by a Parson, a man of the cloth ( google it, that's what I did). So we preach telling the truth to our children and one of America's classic examples of truth telling is invented by a man who is supposed to extol the virtue of truthfulness (for more information please reference The 10 commandments).

"So Mike what is your point?"

The point is, as much as we value honesty as a virtue, it is harder and harder to come by. There are many degrees of lying and different reasons why people will lie to one another. I want to discuss a couple of these ideas as they apply to sales and business.

First: dealing with the matter upfront. Full disclosure, I grew up about 1 hour north of NY City. In New York people are blunt, their offensive, their direct, but they deal with things as they happen. That can be applied directly to sales. Now,  I want to be clear, I am not suggesting you tell your customers that they are idiots and don't know what they are talking about (even if it is true). What I am suggesting is that you need to bring certain things to light an be honest about them. I recently engaged a business in the Baltimore area that had need of my services. It is a family run business and was told numerous times "you need to discuss this with Dad, he calls the shots on this. "  Fine by me, turns out dad is currently in Florida and spends the cold months there. So I work up a proposal that is very attractive to their needs. I send an e-mail to Dad and also send it to the son and daughter. Weeks go by and nothing happens. I call my local contact again and she again tells me Dad is the one in charge and I need to deal with him. Of course she won't give me his telephone number so I must deal with him by email. So I sent Dad an email and asked why he was ignoring me..... YES you read that correctly, I asked him why he was ignoring me. In the body of the email I indicated that I had addressed his need and came up with a solution that would work for his company. I wrote that if he doesn't want to work with me he doesn't have to but I would appreciate a response as to his intentions. TO HIS CREDIT, the customer called me a few days later and the first words out of his mouth " Mike, you're right, I'm sorry."

Now lets be clear again, you don't do this with every customer. And you don't do it right away. But if you are working through the sales process and the customer just begins ignoring you and you are confident that your product or solution is a great fit for them, then why not? This takes tact and professionalism, but it is a very useful tool.

Second: taking responsibility. As a telecom sales professional I have angry customers from time to time. Sometimes things go wrong and the customer is the one left holding the bag. As the sales person it is your job to absorb the blow. I have worked with many people over the last 10 years that, when things go wrong,will blame everybody but themselves for the mistake or the problem. Take ownership of the problem. No, this will not be easy, you will not enjoy it ( yes that is a movie quote), but taking ownership does have some very positive effects, first it disarms the customer. Second it makes the customer feel better. Third, it allows you listen to the customer instead of defending. This way you can find out what the true problem is and then lead the customer down a path to resolution. Beyond this, take care of the problem, even if it is not yours. If the customer is calling you because they have service with or bought a product from your company, it IS your problem. No customer wants to hear "that is not my job," they don't care and your indifference will only fuel the fire of anger and make things more difficult for your company. Be the front line and disarm the situation, this also known as "be the Hero." Besides, who's to say that customer wont be grateful and then refer you to your next big client, that's called "turning a negative into a positive."

So in summary, Washington didn't cut down the cherry tree, you need to be upfront with customers to get the deal done & you need to take ownership of the problem and help the customer.

Thanks for reading today.

Mike S.

BTW follow me on Twitter @mistertelecom and @selflessnetwork