Everybody Sells!
Posted by mike - 11/15/09 at 07:11 pmPerhaps more than anything else elaborated on in the process of Getting to Priceless, whereby fundamentally your customers find true delight in dealing with and thereby staying a loyal customer of your firm, is the concept that “Everybody Sells” in your organization. Clearly, salespeople sell, but in reality everybody in your organization sells. As simple a concept as this may seem to be, it is one of the most difficult for companies to grasp and is rarely applied and executed throughout. That is to say, it is rarely taught, and therefore leaves virtually most of your organization without a powerful multi-layered, seamlessly integrated and consistently corporate-wide customer-focusing effort. Make no mistake about it - the surge of social media and the instantaneous rapid-fire power of viral commentary directed to and about your company via Twitter from customers (and prospects too) ultimately will force companies to be more customer-centric than ever before. As a result, no one, let me repeat, no one in your company can afford to be disengaged from direct connections to their audience. Even today, with social media, and despite claims to the contrary, companies various departments are out of sync with your company’s market perception of you. Unless this concept is absolutely and unequivocally pervasive throughout the organization, you will never personally, nor corporately, get to where you are capable of getting to in the hearts and minds of your market, along with being unassailable by your competitors, to that place that I call Getting to Priceless.
This condition often is the result not only off diverse attitudes amongst your people about “selling” but more seriously is due to the tacit approval of the people who maintain that they don’t sell nor is it their responsibility to do so. It never ceases to amaze me that there exists in virtually every company a department that never shows up on the organization chart. This group carries with it definitive powers of consequence in how your company is viewed, and lets not forget, always compared to your competition as an alternative. Worse still they are probably never educated as to their own essential sales value to the company, both directly and indirectly. In fact, this department is so pervasive within companies that instead of being a singular department they are embedded in many of the identified departments. Collectively, and especially known to your salespeople, they are referred to as the “Sales Prevention” department. Make no mistake; these people are sprinkled throughout your organization.
Who are these people and how do you recognize them? They really are not hard to find. It is that “I’ll get back to you” but never does person. It is that “I can’t do anything about that, it’s company policy” person. It is that “They don’t pay me enough to have to exert myself over this item” person. It is that “It’s not my job” individual. The list goes on and on. And therein lies the bigger problem – their attitudes – that is being addressed here.
Everybody Sells! All the time! It has to be a continually taught factor in your company, constantly reinforced, never relaxed, and always diligently before each and every person at each and every touch point throughout each and every day. And, by becoming so, you have just multiplied your sales organization, reinforced it, strengthened it, and have taken that necessary first step in Getting to Priceless!
