Easy selling in a recession

As a result of this column MPI members and their organization will discover that:

Rewarding people on client satisfaction, not the average size of the sale is good business.
Under promise and over-perform, always placing your client needs ahead of your need for front-end profit makes sense.
Giving everyone the same fair deal so you don’t overcharge some to make up for the profits lost on others, is only fair.

Client satisfaction is everyone’s job. It has to be on the minds of each party to the transaction every time they interact with a customer. Meeting planners and suppliers must remember that the easiest customer to sell is the one you’ve already satisfied.

Satisfying customers is not to be considered a distraction from selling meeting planning products or services. It is ultimately how you sell more. Fix problems, satisfy clients, and they will buy from you again and again.

On the other hand, once someone feels they’ve been cheated, you’ll never get a chance to earn that person’s business again…that’s far more costly than any one-time profit you can make.

The first rule is to never gouge a customer by making them pay more than a fair price for a product or service. If you do, and they come to realize it (and they will), they will tell their family, their friends and just about anyone else who will listen…and you will have lost a considerable part of your potential market share.As regards to your team, reward people on volume and customer satisfaction, not on the size of the average sale. When people are rewarded with incentives for customer satisfaction, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.When a customer has a problem, it’s a problem.

Fix it!
Replace it!
Refund the customers money!

Under promise and over-perform. Always treat your customer as king. Place their need for happiness ahead of your need for front-end profit. Ask what do they really need… not how much can I sell them?

MPI members and their organizations must not try to make up for their own business problems by using their clients. It’s always smarter to select the product or service mix that you choose to offer to suit the “current” market. Then, sell a lot of it.

Take care of your customer at the lowest level of management. No one should have to appeal to a manager if a room is set up wrong or if a meal isn’t cooked properly. Everyone should be authorized to satisfy the customer and to fix it right the first time.

Accept getting beaten sometimes. A small percentage of people will take advantage of your commitment to client satisfaction. To treat the rest of your people fairly, you must take that risk.

Whenever you have a choice between losing a client and losing a profit, lose the profit. The client will come back to you again and again, which means that the profit will return as well.

Never cut your prices to boost your sales. Instead, increase your content. A college student started a small business by “souping” up stripped-down IBM computers with simple plug-in components. Merely by customizing a common product, Michael Dell tapped a broad market of eager computer buyers. How can you attract a broad market of meeting industry product and service buyers?

MPI members and their organizations shouldn’t think about the cost of pleasing a customer. To quote an athletic apparel company, just do it! By managing all of your costs very closely, you can afford giving “outrageous service” to satisfy people…and satisfied people are repeat customers…the easiest to sell in a recession.

This article is provided by Joe Murtagh, “The DreamSpeaker” www.TheDreamSpeaker.com an MPI member and an expert at solving industry challenges. For keynotes, workshops, consulting and questions or a free report on The 3 Most Common Mistakes MPI Members Make email Joe Murtagh at Joe@TheDreamSpeaker.com or call 800-239-0058.

If you enjoyed this column you’ll love our Books (click here) and Training Programs (click here). Each is filled with hundreds of leading edge profit enhancing ideas from the best business thinkers in the world.This is one of over 300 columns published and part of the reason why The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have called The DreamSpeaker^TM about Business Planning Issues.

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