Customer relationships can be either; face-to-face (like buying a car), phone (like Zappos), automated system (like Dell), or self-service (like WalMart).
Customer Relationships and Your Business Model Read More »
A fellow mentor who is an expert in retail once shared with me that opening a shoe store is one of the riskiest businesses to start and operate because there are so many bad assumptions you can make. In a typical main street brick-and-mortar shoe store, you have to select and stock the proper proportions
How to Learn Demand: Zappos Story Read More »
Our five primary senses all work together, so it is important in business sales and marketing to stimulate them all if at all possible. However, with respect to evoking memories, the often overlooked sense of smell is the most powerful sense. If a person is tested on the details of a movie they watched in
The Smell of Success Read More »
It was 10:00 pm on April 18th, 1775. Two riders left Boston, Massachusetts, to ride out to Lexington and Concord to alert the militia that the British troops were on their way to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Who were these two midnight riders? My guess is you came up with Paul Revere as
John Johnson grew up in a small shack with a tin roof in rural Arkansas. In an effort to give John more opportunities, his family moved to Chicago when he was 15 years old.However, coming from a poor area in Arkansas, his new classmates made fun of his accent and handmade clothes. To deal with
A Lesson in Perseverance Read More »
Hearing your name has a profound impact on the brain. Research published in Cerebral Cortex shows that hearing your name activates your cortico-subcortical auditory attention network, a complex way of saying it grabs your focus whether you’re paying attention or not. Similarly, studies in Brain Research demonstrate that hearing your name sparks brain regions tied
The Power of Using a Person’s Name Read More »
I’m a fly fisherman, and anyone familiar with the sport understands that to land a fish using a fly rod requires a lot of skills. I think I like fly fishing because it is cerebral and has so much in common with B2B sales. In fly fishing, you have to understand in great detail the
Customer on a Line Read More »
Sometimes you cannot with any degree of certainty determine if someone is really telling you the whole truth, so you need to create a situation that will force the other party to reveal themselves. In the book How to Think Like a Freak by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the authors discuss how David Lee
How to Know if They are Telling You the Truth Read More »
What you drive says a lot about who you are and what you value. I often find it very useful to meet a new person at a location that requires them to drive there, such as a Starbucks. I try to arrive early and get a seat where I can observe the person drive up.
Have You Seen Your Customer’s Ride? Read More »
My wife frequents a bakery that uses punch cards as a loyalty reward for its customers. After you accumulate five punches you get a ten percent discount on your order when you redeem a completed card. Recently she was at the bakery. When she was ready to check out with a larger order than usual,
How to Win a Customer for Life Read More »
