Bryan Long asked:
The Personality Match-Up
If your customers are not coming back, where are they going?
Everyone sells, whether they are in sales or not. If you have started a business from scratch then you have had to sell yourself enough to your new customers to get them to buy. But did you keep those new customers for a second or third purchase and did they refer their friends to your business?
My sister-in-law sells real estate and in a conversation with her, she said we do not sell what ever products or services we offer, we sell emotion. Are there two sides to the selling coin?
Maybe we can say that if we are a logical or analytical person, we would be selling the technical aspect of the product or service to a person that is also logical and if we are emotionally driven we would then be selling the emotional aspect of the product or service you represent.
So if logical people sell to logically based people and emotional people sell to emotionally based people, which person has the advantage in connecting skills to cross over from their strength to their weak skill?
If you are dominant in one connecting trait (logical or emotional) then it may be harder for you to relate with someone who is stronger in the opposite connecting trait. We need to find out early in our conversation with the customer by asking the right questions. If we ask the right questions and listen to what they say we will know whether they are a logical or emotional customer.
I have been exposed to a wide variety of customers and sometimes I just leave the customer alone. I know as leaders we need to learn how to connect with everyone, but there are times when someone is not connectible.
Maybe we come across to others that way and they do not like being with us either. Typically when we do not like something in someone else, that is because we do not like it in ourselves. It’s called mirroring.
Is there something you do not like about yourself? Then most likely you do not like it coming from anyone else. If the customer is the reason why the owner exists, then the most important skill of a business owner is the skill of connecting with the customer.
Some people are just plain difficult to connect with. John C. Maxwell said, “To connect with people, you travel at their speed”. In order to survive in business, a business owner or manager must be a master of connecting with others at their speed.
The Daisy Chain Effect
The Daisy Chain Effect happens when leadership does not match-up to other people and the leadership has not considered the long-term effects of its actions.
XYZ Company was a leader in its industry. New leadership made some staffing changes that set the company on the road to internal self destruction. This company had been seen on TV in high profile sporting events for a number of years; used to have outstanding customer service; used to make the highest quality product in its industry; used to have a good information flow system from the time the order was placed to the product arriving at the store.
Think on this. I used four past tense descriptions regarding this company and none of them were positives. What happened to this company?
Leadership is only as strong as its weakest point. If the person who is assuming the leadership responsibility is weak in personality matching and making decisions unfortunate events take place like with the XYZ Company. Once dominate in their industry, now they are struggling to regain their industry leading position.
There is a right way to make changes and a wrong way. If your decisions put your companies positive qualities in the negative past description category be ready to pay for negative consequences.
The right personality match-ups will make a company better, not worse. In the case of my example it was a costly disaster.
Consequences
Every action has a re-action or consequence. Whether you are a business leader having problems with an employee or a salesperson dealing with a customer there will be consequences attached to what you say or do.