Focus - Outstanding
Business Relationships
There is so much talk about the importance of relationships and the experience clients have with your organisation but how do you train and refresh in these subjects beyond the usual questioning, listening, finding common interest type stuff and avoid patronising experienced people.
Well, we have a fantastic vehicle in the Empathy Styles model. Outstanding Business Relationships is a two day immersion in the subject which gives insights and develops skills to stand out from competitors, turn difficult clients into opportunities and overcome barriers that clients put in the way of doing business with them.
Email or give us a call on 0161 236 0724 if you'd like to know more.
Free Seminars
Tues 8 Sept, 8.00-9.30am, Manchester.
"How Your Clients May View you"
- a Pro-Manchester event
Thurs 15 Oct, 7.30-9.15am, Leeds.
"Business Development Ability – something you’re born with?"
- a Barnardo's business breakfast event
Why not run a seminar in-house - maybe for your team or for a client event. Choose one of the topics above or get in touch to discuss a subject specific to your organisation.
If you've got a question about how to deal with difficult clients or some feedback on what you think of Sphere we'd love to hear from you.
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This month discover how London pigeons provide the wisdom for better client relationships and repeat business. Really.
Enjoyable reading.
Jim Wigg
Coach, Trainer, Facilitator
Sorry, s'not my job mate
My wife, Sandra, was in Piccadilly recently (the London version not the Manchester version) and popped into a branch of her favourite coffee chain. Favourite because the coffee is strong and consistently the tastiest, there's the added incentive of the loyalty card (get your 10th caffeine fix free) and in our local Manchester version there's a particularly gorgeous bit of male eye-candy (apparently).
It was a beautiful cloudless day in the capital. People everywhere were playing at being continental - sitting outside and soaking up the atmosphere of the sun's rays and taxi fumes. In this particular branch of Sandra's favourite coffee chain the seats outside are arranged around a big bronze statue of a horse on a plinth.
Sandra's waiting in the queue to order when an elderly, slightly frail gentleman comes in from where he's been sitting outside to return his dirty cup and offer some pearls of wisdom to the barista.
He's looking very dapper in a classic, tweed sports jacket, trilby hat and tailored slacks. A bit deaf (the hearing aid was the clue) he starts speaking in a frightfully posh accent but very loudly and somewhat succinctly to the barista. "Bird s**t" is what he says. The queue looks a bit amused albeit in a slightly uncomfortable way.
Then he expands his dialogue: "You should clear up the bird s**t from the statue outside". The foreign barista can't quite understand him - or can't quite believe he's heard him right - so smiles pleasantly and says pardon. To which the elderly chap repeats even louder: "Bird s**t. You should clear up the bird s**t from the statue outside, get a bucket of soapy water and clean it off". The barista finally twigs what he's saying "oh, sorry, that's not our statue, it's Westminster Council's job to clean that up". Elderly chap says "doesn't matter whose job it is, your customers have got to sit around that statue". The barista smiled sweetly at him and shrugged his shoulders at the queue as if to say "aah poor old bloke, he's lost his marbles".
Of course the old chap is absolutely right. What if Westminster Council only clean the statue once a month (there's a lot of pigeons in Piccadilly)? If he turns up the next day and the statue's not cleaned maybe he'll go over the road to the rival coffee chain, along with many other customers who didn't bother to mention it, just voted with their feet.
This is a classic example of the environment affecting what someone does and can be explained in an easy and important formula shown to me by a psychologist friend, Fiona van Graan:
B = f (P and E)
Behaviour is a function of Personality and Environment.
Let's look at two of these in relation to clients (and prospective clients):
Behaviour: In general terms we want them to want to do business with us and then take specific actions when needed – ultimately choose, sign the PO and keep doing this on an ongoing basis!
Environment: We are not just talking the physical environment as in surroundings (s..tty statues). What you do, how you dress, what you say and how you say it will have a huge effect on how the client feels about doing business with you.
What environment are you creating for your clients (and potential clients)? Is it one in which it is easy, pleasurable and productive to do business with you? With little to differentiate between products or the result you deliver, the experience a client has with you is key.
The successful salesperson or business developer creates the best environment they can for clients – they will get the bucket of soapy water and clean they statue themselves, regardless of whose job it is.
And if you want to know about the P in the formula get yourself signed up for an Outstanding Business Relationships course – see Focus.
...and now for something a bit different.
Twenty Dollars (or pounds or euros) Campaign
Spend twenty dollars on the 20th of each month...save the economy.
Details here http://www.spendtwentydollars.com
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