The Competitive Advantage

January 22, 2014

Are your clients ALWAYS right?

When I first got started in business, I used to say that “the client is always right.”

Once I got a little time under my belt, that morphed into “the client is always right, but they aren’t always correct.”

Now, after three decades in business, it’s “the client is often right, but when they aren’t… it’s time to talk.”

Here are the 3 times when you must have a “direct” conversation with your clients…

January 15, 2014

The Customer Experience: Make it Easy to do Business with your Firm

My wife and I had to run to the mall this past weekend… one of the stops was Banana Republic to pay a credit card bill that was almost due.  On the way over, my wife mentioned to me that she really liked Banana Republic – that it was one of her favorite stores.

Spoiler alert… those feelings were about to come to an end!

January 8, 2014

The 3 Basic Principles of the Customer Experience

My wife and I just finished going through the process of deciding which health insurance we wanted for 2014.  Believe it or not, even with all of the “stuff” going on right now related to health insurance, the process actually started out just fine.  And then the wheels fell off.

December 18, 2013

Are your PMs up-selling and cross-selling? They should be!

Every time I go to my local coffeeshop – which is several times each week – I get the same thing… a medium coffee.  In fact, when they see me walk in, a cup is waiting for me at the counter.  (I don’t know if I love the customer service or hate that I’m so predictable!)

But what’s really interesting – even though I am a very good customer – is that the person behind the counter never says… “Would you like a scone with that?” or “We just took some muffins out of the oven – would you like one today?”

And my question is… why not?  Why not take 5 seconds to try to up-sell me?  To add to my order?  To incrementally increase sales?

November 5, 2013

TMRE takeaway… are the bad things easier to remember?

I was at TMRE in Nashville two weeks ago… beautiful venue, terrific networking events, big exhibit hall, good educational sessions, world-class keynote speakers.

But that’s not what I remember most.

My two big takeaways from the event are both bad… and it’s not just me, I heard numerous people talking/ranting about these.

October 15, 2013

Are you a memorable sales rep?

A true story… I was speaking to a friend of mine, Cary, last weekend and he was telling me that he was out visiting some long-standing clients (in the healthcare industry).  During these calls, several of them said to him that they “really missed John (his colleague) and his grapes.”  Grapes?!  Really?!

I had to know more.

September 24, 2013

Details matter… are you paying attention?

I’ve blogged before about the local coffeeshop that I frequent – The Good Cup in Franklin, Tennessee.  I’ve described it as a real social networking site because I always run into old friends there and it gives me the chance to catch up.

A month ago, my son and I ran by for some coffee and a chance to spend a last few minutes together before he headed back to college.  I ordered a cup of coffee and he ordered a drink that needed to be made by the barista.

His order got dropped and when they finally brought it around, they apologized for the delay and gave my son a coupon, good for a free drink on his next visit.  Take a look at the coupon in the photo… it’s a guitar pick.  And I thought it was fantastic…

May 7, 2013

Better, faster, cheaper… is it possible to deliver all 3 for a competitive advantage?

Creating strong client relationships is built on a 3-legged stool…

• Excellent service
• Low prices
• Great products/services

And the presumption has always been… you can deliver on two… but never on all three.  E.g. You can be fast and cheap – but the quality won’t be so great.  Or, you can turn it around quickly with great products – but it’ll cost you.

I have always believed this to be true – not just in MR but in every industry – until I went wine shopping with a friend of mine at Beltway Fine Wine & Spirits, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland.