Acquisition & Retention: Selling More to Your Base to Drive Business Success, Part 4 [Video]
Be sympathetic to your customer’s ideas and desires and appeal to the nobler motives.
Latin Biz Today advisory board member Chuck Garcia’s six-part video series for business owners to secure and retain more customers. The Part 4 call to action requires that you be sympathetic to your customer’s ideas and desires and appeal to the nobler motives. Parts one, two and three can be found here: Part 1: How Dale Carnegie Techniques Can Enhance Customer Acquisition and Retention [Video] Part 2: Dale Carnegie Principles & Tactics to Acquire and Retain Customers, Part 2 [Video], Part 3: Customer Acquisition & Retention: Be Interested & Listen Part 3 [Video] Politics and war, science and sports, memoir and biography — there are many books on these subjects just waiting to be read. Time, in its quest to further educate its readers, showcases the 100 most influential books written in English since the magazine began in 1923. Most of these books touch on weighty topics and provide insight and prescriptions to cure cancer, solve world peace, and predict what the world will look like when we are ready to live on Mars. View that list, and you can’t help but notice some famous authors: Gertrude Stein, Maya Angelou and Barack Obama, to name a few. My favorite book on the list, and one I have relied on since college, became my career bible and is called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It is 19th on the list, and I’m thrilled to see it so prominently featured. Why does a blockbuster self-help book keep company with titles that shape the history of the world? Because Dale Carnegie’s classic speaks to the most basic human tools needed to succeed no matter your profession. Even though it was published in 1936, the principles are timeless and of immense value to business owners. Is your mission to acquire new customers and sell more to your existing base, put your product features and functions aside for now. Despite your infatuation with the latest app, the newest video, or the world’s most sophisticated gadget, there are other ways to impress, influence, and win business. It starts with an open mind, a drive to improve your interpersonal skills, and the need to practice and preach what Dale Carnegie taught me years ago. My partners and I live by these principles and strive to lead by example. In my business of coaching executives on public speaking and Emotional Intelligence, I use all 30 tactics like a tool kit. While the book describes 30 principles to connect with clients and prospects, this part of our series on Customer Acquisition and Retention is focused on two tactics to build your credibility, earn their trust, and keep them buying what you continually offer. While these techniques may seem self-evident, I learned over the years to never assume the obvious when dealing with salespeople. This profession in many ways is no different than law, medicine, or engineering. All require discipline, resilience, and the need to continually refine how you practice your craft. Unfortunately, in a profession that requires constant human interaction, bad habits are often developed. Often, unintentionally, your style may be interpreted as rude, ill-mannered, or disrespectful. With your goal of acquiring more business, it’s typically not your technical competence that inhibits sales effectiveness, but how you communicate with others. I encourage every salesperson I work with to be keenly aware that they are assessed by prospects on their words, body language, and how they engage others. Consequently, for this part of the series on Customer Acquisition and Retention, I recommend you review the following tactics, internalize, and practice them as you strive to win friends, influence people, and earn more business.- Be Sympathetic to Your Customer’s Ideas and Desires: