How You Can Use Music to Influence Your Callers

By Alli Hill

Have you ever listened to a song that completely changed your mood?  Or maybe you hear a particular song or music artist, and memories start to flood your mind, just from hearing that one song.

Music takes a strange yet interesting effect on people, and can prove to be an influential tool when it comes to marketing. It can lend recognition to your company's identity, influence your customer's buying choices, and even impact your listener's mood.

As you begin to craft your on-hold marketing campaign, consider the following points of interest to use music to your advantage:

Audience:  Studies show people perceive a shorter wait time on hold when they hear music they like, so one strategy suggests you choose music your callers can relate to.  If you cater to mostly locals, consider the types of music popular in your area.  If your callers hail from different areas, opt for something universally appealing, like easy listening.

On another tact, one study shows that callers who hear the type of music they expect to hear while on hold tend to hold longer.  That is to say, callers wait longer simply when they hear the type of music that "fits" with their expectations.  So whatever your idea of "typical on-hold music" is might prove worthwhile.

Image:  It doesn't only have to be about what the listeners want to hear.  Music style can prove an effective means to reflect your company's image.  This can help shape the perception of callers who may not be familiar with your brand.  Do you want to project a fun, upbeat environment that caters to twentysomethings?  Think pop music.  Do you want to show an upscale, sophisticated side?  Classical music might provide the best option.  Think about your specific market and product offering and see how you can convey those things through music.

Mood:  It's easier for your customers to rationalize spending when right mood strikes, so choose music that will appeal to their emotional side.  On one hand, it's hard for people not to succumb to a cheerful, upbeat tune, even when their day has been less than stellar.  On another hand, one study shows that playing slow-tempo music makes a person think less time has passed, which means they might be willing to hold longer.

In summary, a one-size-fits-all music style just doesn't exist.  Think carefully about your specific market and products and how you want your company to appear, and work from there.

As always, if you find it difficult to choose the right music for your brand, we're ready to help.  Give us a call at 888-465-3661, or email us at customerservice@winonhold.com, and we'll guide you in the right direction to Sound Better and Sell More.

How to Boost Your Business With One Simple Action - And It Doesn't Cost a Thing!

by Alli Hill

Last weekend while grocery shopping, I witnessed a woman become quite irritated after she stood in line at the deli counter for nearly 10 minutes behind another customer who was taking an exceptionally long time to make her selections (I know it was 10 minutes, as I had been standing at that same counter for about as long). As she walked away, I heard her mutter, "I don't have time for this."

While I continued to wait at the counter for help, I thought about how one simple action from the deli attendant could have potentially saved that sale:

Acknowledge your customers. It seems like a no-brainer, but it still amazes me how many times I visit a store or restaurant and feel like no one even knows I'm there, or have to seek out an employee for help. This should never happen.

Here are three reasons why you should make it a point to acknowledge every customer:

1. It breaks the ice. Your customers should never have to seek out help. Make it a point to approach every customer as soon as you see them. This cements the beginning of the transaction and opens the door for the customer to fulfill the reason they came to your store. Once you make the initial contact, your customer is less likely to leave empty-handed.
2. It projects a sense of value on the customer. When your customers choose to buy from you, they're doing YOU a favor, not the other way around. Welcome them with a warm smile, direct eye contact, or even a simple "How are you?". They'll feel important, and you will leave them with a favorable impression of your business.
3. It makes a customer's wait time seem shorter. No customer wants to feel as though you're too busy for them. If you can't even find a second to acknowledge them, they may think you have enough business and take their money elsewhere.

Whether you're selling deli meats or pipes, valves and fittings, if you can't give your full attention to a customer right away, let them know you'll be right with them. This simple gesture helps soften their attitude about having to wait, and they may decide to hang around a little longer.

When it comes to your customers, the old saying rings true: "If you ignore something, it will go away." Make a commitment to acknowledge every person who walks through the door, and you may find your door is opening more often.

How To Convince Buyers That YOU Are Better Choice

by Kent Covington

Your customers have choices. How do you convince them that your company is a better choice than your competitors?

When a politician tells you that he is honest and will go to bat for the working man, do you automatically believe him? No? Why not? If you’re like most Americans, you don’t trust a politician when he says such things because THEY ALL SAY THAT! They ALL tell you how they are motivated to run for office, not for selfish reasons, but to give back to their country or their community. Some politicians are telling the truth when they say these things. Some aren’t. But they all make the same claims.

So what does it mean to buyers when you promise a “friendly knowledgeable staff”, “superior customer service”, or “competitive pricing”? Well the fact is, just about every company in North America makes those same claims, so such promises mean very little to the average consumer.

Telling buyers that you do the exact same things as your competitor… only better, is not a differentiating idea. It is a hollow claim. It doesn’t matter if it’s true; it’s still a hollow claim. And besides… aren’t these traits just the price of entry? Shouldn’t customers EXPECT a friendly, knowledgeable staff and competitive pricing?

When my family and I moved to the Atlanta area several years ago, I had to choose a new bank. All of the banks around here (and pretty much everywhere else for that matter) say things like “Come and see the difference personal service can make”… “We’re community minded”… and “Our people make the difference”.

In the end, I chose a bank that advertised “More ATM locations than any other bank in town”. While other banks were chanting meaningless clichés and generalities, this bank offered me a specific benefit that no one else was offering. All else being (apparently) equal, the convenience of having many ATM locations was appealing.

One of the most powerful things you can do in business is to offer a truly unique benefit. Give your customers an advantage that will make their lives easier, their businesses more profitable, or both! If you want to leave your competitors in the dust, develop a powerful differentiating idea.

Whatever idea you choose must meet the following 3 criteria:

1 – It must be something none of your competitors can say.

2 – It must describe a valuable benefit. It has to be something that is important to your prospective customers.

3 – It must be concrete and easily proven. Don’t make vague claims that can’t be quantified, such as “best service in town”. Make your claim specific. When a bank says “more ATM locations than any other bank”, or “if you ever wait in line more than 5 minutes, we’ll buy you lunch at…” those are concrete claims that are supported by facts or a specific guarantee.

Here’s a thought… why not steal a page from the aforementioned bank’s playbook, and be the most convenient option in town?

Find out what time your competitors open, and open an hour earlier. What time do they close? Close an hour later. Does your competition offer free delivery? If so, then you should offer extended delivery hours, more delivery trucks, and deliver parts and supplies faster than other supply companies.

“We’re open earlier... we close later, and have more free delivery trucks on the road than any other supply company in town.”

“ANYTOWN WIN_____... NO ONE MAKES IT EASIER TO GET THE SUPPLIES YOU NEED!”

NOW I’m convinced. You’ve just told me something very specific; something that benefits me (the customer), and something that none of your competitors can say.

Of course, you can only say this if you’re willing to do what it takes to make it true. Sure, it might require a small investment on your part to extend your hours of operation by an hour or two, or the “go the extra mile” (no pun intended… well, ok, maybe a little) on delivery. However, the benefit of being able to say something your competition can’t say will likely outweigh the cost of providing that service, many times over.

Dare to be different. Set your company apart from your competitors. THAT is how you convince buyers to spend their money with you.

How to Get the Very Most From Your OnHold Marketing

by Jimmy Harris

No question about it, we’re up against some tough times in this economy. High fuel prices and the slowdown in building have hit everyone in the supply business. Surprisingly though, many WinWholesale companies continue to thrive despite the economic obstacles. From what I have seen, most of them have two things in common: 

First, they maintain a positive outlook, and second, they are staying on offense. 

Now, I can’t help you much with the positive outlook, but I can talk with you about how to stay on offense. 

You’re already using your on-hold time effectively, to convert new callers into customers and sell more to your existing customers. And you’re taking the time to read a marketing newsletter… so congratulations! It certainly appears that you are still in an offensive mindset when it comes to marketing your company. 

Now, to help you get the very most out of your on-hold marketing, let’s review the benefits of your on-hold marketing, and think of ways to optimize the benefits of your service. 

Here are 7 ways to WIN with your on-hold marketing:

1. Increase Sales To Existing Customers. 
WinOnHold marketing is one of the most efficient ways to inform and remind your customers of all the products you carry. Not only your main supplies, but your new products, and your ancillary products, like tools and supplies. Remember to update your on-hold messages regularly, and let your customers know about many different products they can benefit from. 

2. Convert More New Callers Into Customers. 
When you place potential customers on hold there’s something you should know: If they hear silence, 60% of them will hang up within one minute. But when they hear professionally produced on-hold advertising, callers will stay on the line 2-3 times longer. WinOnHold helps you prevent dropped calls and the lost sales that result from them, and convert callers into customers. To help convert more callers into customers, use store image scripts to let new prospective customers know what you stand for, and how you can make their job easier! 

3. Increase Attendance at Special Events. 
“Counter Days” or “Customer Appreciation Days” are a great way to get people in the door, increase customer loyalty, and show off your new product lines. WinOnHold Marketing is a great way to get more people in the door. More people = more money… so remember to advertise your events on-hold. 

4. Utilize Professional Tools to get Your Message Across. 
When you want to let your customers know about a new product you are carrying, or remind them of products you’ve been carrying for years, WinOnHold marketing makes it easy! You can choose from more than two thousand expertly crafted scripts written exclusively for WinWholesale companies. Whatever the model, line, or product you wish to advertise, chances are we've already written a script - or multiple scripts - for that specific product. Remember, if you don’t find the product script you’re looking for, let us know, and one of our certified professional copywriters will write a customer script to achieve your goals. 

5. Save Time And Make Your Job Easier. 
Our step-by-step “production builder” at WinOnHold.com is designed to help you easily create an on-hold message that suits the image of your company, and accomplishes your marketing goals. It’s straight forward and easy to use, so you can create your on-hold message quickly, and save a little time in your busy day. Remember that you can schedule changes well in advance. Everyone has certain weeks or months that are quite hectic (during inventory, over the holidays, etc.), but by scheduling your changes in advance, you can save time and ensure your messages are current and fresh! 

6. Get Help Paying For It. 
We’ve developed a co-op advertising documentation tool exclusively for Winwholesale companies. This free tool tracks exactly how much you’re spending on each vendor you’re advertising through winonhold. You can access this information any time you want. Be sure to take advantage of this valuable tool. 

7. Take Advantage of Free Customer Service and Support. 
If you ever have a question or a problem of any kind, we’re only a phone call away. Please don’t hesitate to call if there is ever anything we can do for you. Our customer service has never been outsourced, and never will be. When you call, you will speak with someone right here in our offices that can answer your question or help you resolve your problem. 

We want to help you benefit from your on-hold marketing in every way possible, so please let me know if you have any thoughts as to how we can better serve you. 

Until next time, stay on offense, and stay sharp!

How To Grow Your Business In a Bad Economy

by Kent Covington

It’s no secret that the economy is slow right now, and contractors of all kinds are feeling the pinch more than most… which, in turn, affects your company. 

So what can you do to survive - or even GROW your company in troubled economy? Here are a few tips.

PACK A COOLER, BUT KEEP THE TANK ON “FULL”! 

If you wanted to take a family road trip on a very limited budget, what could you do to cut down on your travel expenses? You might bring a cooler full of food, drinks, and snacks to avoid the expense of dining out for every meal. You might look for economical lodging. But if you fill your tank halfway when a full tank is needed, you can expect a long walk to the nearest service station. And in the end, you will have saved nothing. 

Similarly, while you should look for ways to make your company more efficient (which sometimes means cutting costs), beware of cutting back on the things that are responsible for fueling your business. 

When times are tough, many of your customers will become more cost-conscious and look for ways to tighten their belts. It is absolutely critical, now more than ever, that you continue to remind them why YOU are the best choice for their wholesale needs. Make sure they understand that the few dollars they might save somewhere else can’t match the service you offer with your products. 

There are two engines within your business that you can and must use to communicate your value to your customer: 

Customer service and marketing. 

These are the keys to business growth. Now is the time to invest in things to carry you forward, which leads me to my next point… 

STAY ON OFFENSE! 

What if a basketball team, in the middle of a game, chose to concentrate solely on defense, and stopped shooting the ball? Would they have any chance of winning? The same is true in business. You have to keep shooting; keep pushing forward! Find out if there are any needs your customers have that you are not currently meeting, and look for ways to increase your sales volume from your existing customers. And of course, keep inviting new customers to do business with you. 

There are many ways to market your business, but there simply isn’t room here to touch on everything. So, we’ll look at one method that is especially well suited to helping you grow your company in a slow economy… strategic partnerships. 

WORK TOGETHER WITH OTHER BUSINESSES

What (non-competing) companies in your area serve the same kind of customers you serve? Figure out who those companies are, and find a way to work together. 

For instance, a Winnelson company often serves contractors (and sometimes individuals) who are working on a kitchen or bathroom remodeling project. Often, they must compete with the likes of Lowe’s or Home Depot for sales. Well, a local flooring company - we’ll call them “Johnson Flooring” - also competes with the big box stores, and serves many of the same customers. 

The Winnelson company could arrange to place a sign by their counter advertising Johnson Flooring, while the flooring retailer does the same for the Winnelson company. The Winnelson company could pass out discount cards, valid with any flooring purchase at Johnson Flooring, and vice versa. 

I recently heard of a highly successful promotion by a retailer of high end household products, in which they sent out credit card sized promotional cards coded with a magnetic strip on the back. Each card was redeemable for some discount or prize, and the only way for customers to know what they had won, would be to visit the store. For a small investment in a pack of plastic cards and the right card-reader software, you could hold a similar promotion, and have a partnering company (such as “Johnson Flooring”) pass out these cards to all of their customers. 

Somewhere in your town, there is a company (possibly several) that can help you reach new customers. Why not buy the owner or manager of that company a cup of coffee, and talk about how you can help one another? 

Again, there are many ways to market your company, but strategic partnerships are often among the most efficient, low-risk opportunities available to you. And in a slow economy, that’s exactly what you’re looking for. 

Remember, be efficient, but stay on offense! By prudently investing in marketing and customer service, you can thrive, even in a slow economy.

How to Make $100K and Bench Press 300 lbs by the End of the Year

by Jimmy Harris

15 or 16 years ago, I was a 30-something, married, father-of-four disc-jockey-cum-desk-jockey who had spent the last decade behind a microphone getting fat eating free baked goods while going broke in radio, and was then trying to get my fledgling on-hold business off the ground working out of the enclosed carport of our 1100-square-foot 3-bedroom ranch.

In an attempt to change my family's prospects, I found myself reading a book about goal setting by a sales trainer named Brian Tracy. Pretty good book with some good fundamental ideas on how to accomplish things. But at the end of the chapter, Brian suggested an exercise which he said would help. but I thought was a little... silly.

He challenged me that if I really wanted to complete my goals in the next year, I should write them down as though I had already accomplished them, write a deadline, and he virtually promised it would happen.

In spite of my misgivings, I decided to try it, and wrote a financial and fitness goal:

"I earn 100,000 per year and I can bench press 300 lbs." Deadline: Dec 31st

Then, I put the book down, left the "reading room", and... went back to work.

Sometime later in the following year - maybe February - I was astonished to realize that silly little exercise had worked! For the first time in my life, I had seen 6 figures in my bank account and had witnesses watch as I slowly and carefully bench-pressed 315 lbs. on a flat bench... all before December 31st.

To be clear, I didn't even do the other stuff I was supposed to do. Like post the goals on the bathroom mirror and read them every day, etc. All I did was read the book, write the goals, and go back to work.

So what happened? Did I put power into the universe by writing those words down?

Well... no-at least not the "cosmic" universe. But something very real , and very basic, happened in the universe inside my mind, will, and body. Was it a coincidence? I had tried many, many times before to get my bench up to 300 lbs... but always unsuccessfully.

No, the results were real, and were a direct result of my little goal-setting exercise.

So if it wasn't magic, or coincidence... what happened?

I'm no psychologist, but I can tell you this: setting goals works. I've used this same goal-setting exercise to complete an international body transformation with my wife, run my first marathon by age 40, and become 100% debt-free by age 50. The results? My wife and I not only competed, but won our Category in the Body-For-Life Contest in 2002 (click here to see before and after photos). I ran the Atlanta Marathon in 2006 (one year later than hoped for due to a training injury), and we got out of debt in September of 2013, at age 48.

How This Works

When you take the time to clearly define your goals, and then write them down as though they have already happened, you are putting all the collective parts of yourself - Your Will, Your Mind, and Your Body - into motion that you are about to get something done.

You see, just like us, our Wills, our Minds, and our Bodies are basically lazy and unfocused. They just lay around waiting for us to tell them what to do. Even worse, we wait for our bodies to tell us what to do. But when you set a serious, focused goal, you have just served notice that it's time to get to work!

YOU inform your WILL... Your WILL passes this on to your MIND, and your MIND thinks creatively and recruits your BODY to get out there and do what needs to be done to accomplish the goal YOU, as the leader of this group, has decided should be accomplished.

Consequently, I found myself picking up the phone and making more and better sales calls and hitting the gym regularly and intensely. In other words, by committing my goals to writing, I have given myself marching orders. I now had a specific, intentional focus and a direction to work in.

Isn't is interesting how much we can accomplish when we work with focus and intentionality?

So, what are your goals?

Whatever your goals, I want to challenge you to write them down, put a deadline on them, and see what happens!

I know I'm going to!

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Naked Plug for winonhold

If your goals have to do with growing your business, give us a call. We can help yousound more professional, keep your customers informed, and increase your average ticket size for pennies per day, with our proprietary on-hold advertising program we've built just for Winsupply stores across the nation.

PS - Interested in Digital Signage, Overhead Music, or Scent Marketing? Give us a call at 888-465-3661. If there is enough interest, we're going to build it out Just For You!

How to Succeed in Business in Spite of the Experts

by Jimmy Harris

Back in the 90’s, when I decided to start this company, I had zero business experience, and even less money. So I read anything I could get my hands on about starting a business. All the “experts” said I needed to save up at least two years living expenses (in addition to startup costs) before I could hope to start a business. 

Yea, Right. 

If I didn’t have the money, they said, I should look into an SBA loan, or try to find an “Angel” investor, or borrow money from my friends and family.

I didn’t even know anyone who had that much money. And even if I could get it, they said, 95% of businesses failed in the first 5 years. So only a “lucky 5%” made it! 

I was broke, I didn’t like loans, I didn’t want to borrow from my family and I had never been one of the “lucky 5%” in anything. 

That was 1996. We’d just had our fourth child. I was driving a 1980 Nissan with a couple of hundred thousand on it and four “Maypops”. It didn’t have AC, which is probably why my Floridian brother-in-law gave it to me. I’m in Georgia, so going on a sales call was horrific. Hide the car around back. Wear a light shirt to keep the sweat stains from showing and LOOK CONFIDENT! I was making just over 10 bucks an hour doing the morning show for a network of Christian radio stations, and I had zero in savings. 

Things did not look hopeful. 

But before I let my situation and the “experts” get me down, I decided to ask some successful businessmen I knew how they got started, and what advice they might have for a young buck (OK, I was 30, but looking back, that seems young!) with a lot of desire and not much else. So, for their “consultation fee” I bought them lunch, and they opened their minds and hearts to me. Thankfully, what they told me was different from what the book “experts” said. They told me if I waited to save up 2 years income, I’d never start a business. They told me if I went into debt, I’d drown in it. The men who didn’t offer to invest in my company told me getting investors was risky. They encouraged me to start small, using what I had on hand, to keep my expenses low, to work hard, to provide a good product and to charge a fair price. 

They told me a lot of other things too. And what they told me gave me the confidence to move forward, and to try my hand at business ownership. 

Today, without ever applying for a loan, and without ever taking any investors, I'm earning much more than I did in 1996, and the business is 100% debt free. And we’ve had the unique opportunity to help businesses all over the country be more successful every single day. 

What’s the point of my little story? 

When you are looking for advice, don’t go to the “experts” unless they have gone down the road you want to go down. Maybe things have been piling up on you, and you have heard that you are destined to lose. Maybe your store is fighting for its financial life. Maybe you’re fighting for yours. I don’t know where you are, or what’s going on in your life today, but I do know that there are people who’ve been down the road ahead of you, and who’d like to help. 

Feel free to give me a call if I can help you. If you’re not already a customer, there’s never been a better time to begin proactively marketing your company. If you need equipment, I’m sitting on a pile of inventory, and would love to get it into your office where it can help you make money. And if you are using the new CISCO system, our service is a perfect fit!

Till Next time . . . Stay Sharp!

How To Use Your Competition To Make You Better!

by Jimmy Harris

LOSE 30 LBS IN 2 WEEKS WITHOUT EXERCISING OR CHANGING YOUR DIET!

Skeptical? As a battle-weary warrior in the fight against fat, I can tell you that your skepticism is definitely justified. Short of major surgery, (which I haven't tried… yet) I've only found only three ways to actually lose fat. 1) Eat Less 2) Exercise more, or 3) Both. Unfortunately for me, only option 3 works fast enough to make a difference!

So, why do we continually hear of new EASY ways to lose weight? Because the people who are selling these systems know that they can fool "some of the people some of the time"… and that's all they need to turn a profit.

Recently, this hit home when one of my favorite customers called to cancel his service with us. "So where'd we go wrong?" I asked. "Nowhere" he said "Everything's been great. I have no complaints… I just found someone else who is offering the exact same service for a lot less money".

Like you, I know my business. I know what it costs to produce what we create, and I know what it costs to provide the level of service we provide. Unless this company was hiring their voice-over talent & scriptwriters from off-shore sweatshops, and getting all their background music from a music-pirating operation . . . I wasn't buying their claim.

But to be fair, I spent 3 days researching the company and the offer they were making to our clients. What I found didn't surprise me. Remember the Hertz Rent-A-Car's "Not Exactly" campaign? The short version of what I found is that this company is "Not Exactly". Enough said.

Unfortunately, several of our clients fell victim to this company's less than forthrightsales practices, and we lost more clients in one week than we lost all last year. The good news is, all but one of them reinstated their service with us as soon as they discovered the truth about their offer. (I haven't given up on that one remaining client either . . . stay posted)!

Has this ever happened to you? If so, then you have a GREAT opportunity to grow! I know it sounds counterintuitive, but each time we have been attacked by a competitor, very shortly thereafter, we grow more than we lost. Why? Because it makes us take a closer look at what we're doing, and then work very hard to STAY SHARP!

Here are 5-steps I've used to successfully grow my business each time I'm attacked by a competitor. To make it easier to remember, I'm using the first letters in the word SHARP.

Sell More: Whenever we lose a customer - which isn't very often - I'm reminded of something I heard 20 years ago about the Israeli army. Whenever Israel loses a single soldier, they take seven of their enemies. Now, I don't specifically target my competition's customers, but I do go to work to replace the one I lost with at least 7 more - preferably 10 or 20! I also do all I can to get the old customer back. It doesn't always work, but to date I'm batting better than .500!

Hone In: This is a great time to hone in on what you do best - whatever that is - and make it better. It's also a good time to hone in on what your weaknesses are and see if you can improve. Is there something you're not selling that you should be? Do you need to make your counter time faster? Offer free deliveries?

Appreciate: Take time to demonstrate your appreciation to your customers. A simple note or phone call can go a long way toward strengthening business relationships. And of course, the stronger those relationships are, the harder it will be for competition - ethical or otherwise - to get in.

Research and Revise: A few years ago we lost a bid on a 12-location deal. I researched and found that what the competition offered that we didn't was a web-interface. Three months and a few thousand dollars later, we had our own web-interface that was even better. Nine months after that, we earned that customer's business, and they are still our customer today.

Persevere: I saw a sign the other day that said "everything will be OK in the end. If it's not OK, it's not the end". While it was meant to be entertaining, I think there's a lot of truth in that statement. When you've done all you can, and there is nothing else to change… then just keep doing business the right way, and hold on. If you have a good product with superior service, you won't just replace the old business - you'll lead in your industry!

Well, that's it. And did you notice that I didn't mention price? That's because in my experience, it's rarely about price . . . but that's a subject for another article!

Till next month - Stay Sharp!

How to Use Your Counter Space to Increase Sales Tomorrow

by Kent Covington

Nowhere on your shopping list was there mention of a little tin box of Altoids, a 20oz. Dr. Pepper, or a pack of AA batteries . . . so why did they wind up in your cart at the last second? Because someone did some great marketing!  

Impulse buying is a wonderful source of revenue for businesses of every shape, size and color. Are you getting your fair share?

If one of your customers stops by between service calls on a muggy afternoon, would he be able to resist a cold bottle of Gatorade poking out of a steel tub of ice? And if he’s hungry, maybe he’ll grab a Snickers bar as you ring up the rest of his purchase. You make a couple extra bucks and you save your customer a stop at the 7-Eleven.

Of course, impulse purchases aren’t limited to junk food. If you ever shop at Auto Zone, you’ll notice an assortment of sugar-fueled goodies near the register, but you’ll also see hand cleaner, tire pressure gauges, and key-chain flashlights. These are common items that people who work on their own vehicle will likely need from time to time.

What are the most common items that your customers need on a regular basis? Start by answering this question:

You can never have too much (or too many) _____. 

Determine what word(s) belong in that blank, and then think of a way you can get that product on or near your front counter. A carpet installer can never have too much tack-strip. An artist can never have too many brushes. Regardless of the industry, there’s always something – often, more than one “something” -  you can never really have TOO much of. 

You might find that something you are already selling would sell better if you place it at the counter.  Why?  Studies show that the longer your customer holds an item in his hand that he did not initially intend to buy, the more likely he is to think “aah, I don’t really need this right now”, and put it back on the shelf. The more time he has to think about it, the more likely he is to talk himself out of it… even if he really does need to buy it! But your customer will rarely change his mind about a last-second purchase.

The most important time to offer something to your customer is when his wallet is in his hand! Chances are, he’ll be thankful you took the time to think about what he needs and made it quickly and easily available.  Best of all, he won’t wind up buying those items somewhere else!  

Last-second purchase items are not limited to what you can fit on the counter. McDonalds has sold tons of extra potatoes by asking “Would you like fries with that?” Radio Shack has made millions simply by asking “Do you need batteries for this?”   Is there a question you can ask that will increase your sales?   That simple question could be the difference between pretty good numbers and a great year!

Now, I realize I probably haven’t told you anything you don’t already know. This is pretty basic, straight forward stuff. But the simple things are often the easiest to overlook. So don’t forget to help your customer think of something else he might need or want before he walks out the door. You’ll being doing him a service, and you’ll have a little more cash in the coffer at the end of the day!

If you Ignore this Political Truth, you will FAIL in business.

by Jimmy Harris

Been watching politics? Have you noticed that more attention is given to style pointsthan substance?

A candidate might have zero leadership experience, an unclear vision for the future, and failed policy ideas, but after a debate, the talking heads will discuss how "electable" they seemed based on how well they spoke, or whether they looked "presidential".

Like it or not, what we see in operation is a time-tested maxim that businesses can't afford to ignore:

Perception IS Reality.

Why can't we ignore it? Because - in this way, at least - business is just like politics. Whether your voters pull a lever or swipe a credit card, both politicians and businesses are competing for a limited number of votes. And since neither customers nor voters have time to completely research their "candidates", they are forced to form their opinions based on perception.

Politicians know this. They pay very close attention to the style of their hair, the whiteness of their teeth, who they're seen with, the sound of their speaking voice and even the exact shade of their blue suit. Their hair, their teeth, their clothing, their articulation and their ideas are all carefully orchestrated to craft their political brand.

And the stakes are high. The one with the best brand wins in a winner-takes-all game and goes on to enjoy the power and all the perks of being an elected official. The losers? They go home.

In business, the contract between the winners and losers may not be as obvious, and there can be more than one winner... but in both cases, the battle is won and lost in the arena of PERCEPTION.

So, what are you doing to craft the brand of your business?

Of course you have a nice lighted sign outside, a great parking lot, a fast moving counter, a clean and welcoming showroom, and a dress code for employees, right? But is this enough of an edge to put you over the top, or is this simply the "bar to entry" to doing business?

For instance, how do your customers perceive your company when they call? Is it professional? What about after hours? Is that consistent and professional? Is everyone trained to answer the phone in exactly the same way to give the customer a consistent experience? (Consistency is HUGE, by the way... but we need another entire article to cover the subject adequately.)

When you must place people on hold, as we all must, what do they hear? Silence? The dreaded "beeps"? The radio? That horrid little guitar riff that comes standard on the Cisco system? Or are you working hard to carefully craft your image to help you WIN in every single way you can?

Winonhold.com exists to help you carefully craft the perception callers have of your company. We're now serving more than 350 Winsupply companies with "Professional On-Hold Marketing and Professional Telephone Greeting Services to help you project exactly the image you want every time the telephone rings!

Find out more at www.winonhold.com, or just stop by Booth #104 (toward the front, all the way to the left) at the Vendor Showcase in Orlando. Even if we don't do business, we'll have a small gift for you!

See you in Orlando!

Never Turn Out The Lights On Your Customers!

by Kent Covington & Jimmy Harris

BEWARE! Don’t allow a slow economy to scare you into making short-sighted decisions! 

One evening, not too long ago, I was sitting in a café/bakery style restaurant, where I frequently took my laptop to catch up on a little work. I arrived at 6:45 and immediately confirmed with the guy at the counter that they did in fact close at nine that night, as the business hours posted on the door stated. 

To my surprise, less than half an hour later, one of the employees asked me if I would like a refill before they poured out all of the coffee. He told me that since business was slow that evening, they would be closing early. I scanned the cafe and noticed several other parties still enjoying a meal or a coffee. Minutes later, a lady walked up to the counter and was turned away. The irritation was noticeable in her voice as she lamented “I thought you guys close at nine!” 

I lingered for another 20 minutes or so, and during that time, I counted four more parties approach the entrance, tug in vain on the handle of each glass door, look at each other, point to the window sticker that listed the hours of operation, shrug their shoulders, and walk away. 

But this is a marketing newsletter, right? So what’s this got to do with marketing? Everything. In fact, if I were writing an article to show you how to KILL your marketing . . . this is the sort of thing I’d suggest! 

I for one will think twice before going back there again. And I’d be willing to bet the other eight or ten people who were there that night feel the same way I do. And of course, we’ll all tell our friends. 

“Yeah, but they DID save money” that evening, right? 

No. They didn’t. They threw money out the window. It doesn’t matter if they sell sandwiches and coffee, or tires, insurance or appliances… ultimately, they are in the customer service business (we all are, after all). Sacrificing service to save a few bucks is no better than serving a stale bagel or a cold cup of coffee. They just ran off probably 8 or 10 customers who are going to become “anti-evangelists” for this store. When you weigh that against the $48 they saved in man-hours and electricity... well, you do the math. 

When revenue drops, businesses of all varieties look for wasteful spending that can be eliminated. The key word of course, is “wasteful”. 

Maybe you can clean your own bathrooms, or answer the phone with one less person. Perhaps you can clean the windows and take the trash out yourself. Maybe you don’t need the water service, and you can paint that hallway wall yourself. But the moment you start closing your doors early, your customers will notice. When you turn off your on-hold marketing, your company will sound smaller, and less professional and confident on the telephone. 

Think long and hard before cutting your delivery or business hours. Keep visiting job sites. Keep going the extra mile. In fact, when business is slow, it’s time to do MORE, not less. The good news is that doing “more” doesn’t necessarily mean spending much more. 

I recently spoke to a man who built one of the most successful electrical wholesale supply locations in the nation, with Lowes and Home Depot right across the street. He accomplished this largely through a series of low cost innovations. For example, they brought in a few toaster ovens, and frequently baked cookies in the store for their customers. They intentionally baked them in-store, rather than just bringing them in, so that when customers walked through the door, it smelled more like a bakery than an electrical supply store. It was a small thing, but even the smallest of innovations can go a long way toward separating yourself from your competitors. Do the opposite of what the restaurant I visited did to its patrons, and constantly remind YOUR customers how greatly you value them! 

In a tough economy, it is more important than ever to provide a more remarkable customer experience than your competitors. Serve them in an extraordinary way. And don’t forget to keep talking to them! Continue investing in marketing & sales efforts! Customer service and marketing are the two lifelines to your customers. Sever those lines at your own risk. Enhance them, and you’ll be among the survivors – and thrivers – when things turn around! 

Then you can help those competitors who are, in effect, turning off the lights on their clientele… by taking some of those pesky customers off their hands.

Strengthen Your Company with the "7 Phases Of Amazing Customer Service"

by Kent Covington

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing business author and speaker, Mike Dandridge. Before Mike authored three books, he took a struggling electrical wholesale supply company, and turned it into one of the most successful companies of its kind in the United States. 

Mike began working with the electrical supply company in a Texas town of roughly 50,000 people as a successful outside salesperson. For many years, this company was the only source of electrical supplies in town. And with no competitors to divide customer attention, their business thrived. But then Lowe’s moved in across the street, and Home Depot followed suit. Soon, the big box competition had Mike’s employer rapidly circling the drain. Recognizing the need to change course, Mike was asked to take over management of the company and was handed the daunting task of rescuing the business and the jobs of all his coworkers. 

How did he overcome the onslaught of billion-dollar competitors to reclaim the market share lead?

He did it by refocusing the company on the on the “The 7 Phases of Amazing Customer Service”, which you will find in his book, The One-Year Business Turnaround. Here are the “7 Phases” in a nutshell.

The 7 Phases of Amazing Customer Service: 

1. Professionalism: Communicate a consistent, solid image that matches your customer’s perception of professionalism in your industry. Presenting a professional image creates a doorway to success and prosperity. Professionalism translates to trust. When you project a high level of professionalism to your customers, it tells them that you and your staff are: knowledgeable, consciences, reliable, and caring. Your level of professionalism can even affect how honest and trustworthy customers perceive your company to be! In short… professionalism breeds trust. A lack of professionalism breeds distrust. 

2. Ownership: Customers love the person who can own up to a problem, a mistake or challenge, and turn it into a triumph. Being accountable to your customers sets you apart from your competitors. 

3. Innovation: “New and improved” is a tired and meaningless cliché. True innovation shines new light on familiar challenges. Customers are looking for “the next big thing”. By bringing constant innovation to your organization, you will stay fresh and relevant in today’s rapidly changing business landscape. In business, similarity is a disease. Be innovative and creative in your approach to customer service. Make your company different from your competitors in such a way that customers absolutely cannot avoid noticing. Color inside the lines at your own risk. 

4. Knowledge: It’s amazing how often we hear the words “I don’t know” when asking a question of someone who passes for a customer service representative. The more knowledgeable you become, the more helpful you will be to others. It isn’t enough to smile and look good. Being knowledgeable is the added value you bring to your customer service. 

5. Initiative: Initiative is having the resourcefulness to see what needs done and accomplishing it before anyone asks. Take the initiative to exceed the expectations of others and you will always have an abundance of customers. 

6. Integrity: Be fair and trustworthy, be honest and conscientious, and customers will pay you with their loyalty. Act in accordance with these values, and you will build a strong and enduring customer base. 

7. Commitment: Customers demand more than ever before. Only individuals with commitment will meet those demands. Do what you say you will do, or alert people when you can’t. Those who commit to the job, work from the heart. 

Follow this formula with radical dedication and you will see your market share grow, even in a challenging economy! And check out Mike Dandridge’s book, The One-Year Business Turnaround, as well as Mike’s blog atwww.businessturnaround.blogs.com.

The 2 Most Cost-Effective Wholesaler Marketing Tools on the Planet

By Kent Covington

If there’s one thing most all of us business owners & managers have in common these days… it’s that we’re working hard to keep our costs down. In this economy, that’s a must. However, you cannot afford to run and hide. You must remain on offense and continue to reach out to customers and prospective customers. There’s an old adage that says “A funny thing happens when you stop inviting people to do business with you…” 

I’ll bet you can guess how the rest of it goes. 

You probably understand the importance of marketing to your customer base, but you can’t justify risking large sums of cash right now on marketing efforts that may or may not pay off. With that in mind, we’d like to recommend two extremely low-risk, low-cost marketing tools that are among the most cost-effective methods around. We’ll talk about the first of those two methods today, and we’ll cover the second in the next newsletter.

The first cost-effective marketing tool we recommend is on-hold marketing. I know, what a surprise, right?! An on-hold marketing company recommends on-hold marketing… shocker! But I won’t tell you anything I don’t wholeheartedly believe, and if you’ll humor me for a moment, I think what I have to say here will make sense to you. 

It should always be your goal to answer calls as quickly as possible, but unless you have a staff of 30 at your counter at all times, hold time is just a part of doing business. So what happens when your customers and prospective customers are placed on hold? 

If callers hear silence when placed on hold, you have a problem. Research shows that, when holding to silence, 60% of callers will hang up before their call is answered. Perhaps your callers are more patient. If so, great! But the fact remains that holding to silence is proven to make hold time seem longer than it actually is, and that greatly increases the risk of losing calls. That matters because lost calls often = lost business. 

But even if you never lost a single call, if your customers are holding to silence, you’re still losing opportunities. Hold time is a valuable chance to let customers know about new products or even existing products, which they may not know you carry. It’s also a great time to remind customers of all the reasons why they should do business with you. Another great use for on-hold marketing is to inform callers of upcoming events, such as training classes or customer appreciation days. On-hold marketing provides many different ways to use otherwise wasted hold time to build your business. 

That covers the “effective” part of cost-effective equation… now what about the “cost” part? 

If you think about it, the most expensive part of any advertising is the platform. If you run a newspaper ad, you’re paying for the ad space. If you air a TV commercial, you’re paying for the air time. The development of the actual print ad or the commercial is a small part of the overall cost. But customer hold time is already yours; it’s a platform YOU own. You don’t have to pay for air time or ad space, which makes it a very low-cost way to advertise. The development & delivery of the on-hold marketing (what your customers hear when placed on hold) is your only investment, and it’s a relatively small one at that. Generally, you can get started for less than less than your basic cable bill. You can get an exact quote with a quick phone call to WinOnHold. 

On-hold marketing enables you to do 3 things: 

1. Convert more callers into customers

2. Educate and sell more to existing customers

3. Build a more professional image

Bottom line, on-hold marketing helps you to make the very most of what you already have, and prevent business from falling through the cracks. And that kind of marketing is always far more cost-effective than paying handsomely to reach entirely new customers. 

If we can answer any questions for you, we’d be happy to help. Just give us a call at (888) 465-3661. 

Once again, we’ll cover cost-effective marketing tool #2 in an upcoming issue. Until then, best wishes and happy Labor Day!

The 3 Critical Keys to Hiring a Successful Salesperson

By Kent Covington

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Charlie Hauck of Growth Dynamics, a firm that specializes in Sales Force Development, on the subject of recruiting successful salespeople. Charlie had a lot to share, but I’ve boiled it down to three simple “Keys” that could unlock the secret of finding and retaining good salespeople!

Key One: Recruit Constantly

Most business owners and managers only recruit and hire salespeople in a time of need. When the business leader learns that a member of their sales staff is moving on, they begin a hasty search for what they hope will be a suitable replacement. Often, employers feel they don’t have time for a thorough recruiting process. They need someone in the field Monday! This frequently leads to implementation of the “mirror test”: If he can fog up a mirror with his breath, he’s qualified! 

Don’t wait until you suddenly find yourself understaffed. Recruit Constantly! 

Key Two: Understand That Most Salespeople Don’t Belong In Sales

The unforgiving truth of the matter is that the majority of people working in full-time sales should find another line of work. Many people try their hand at sales simply because they couldn’t land the position they wanted, and they believe (incorrectly) that anyone with people skills can sell for a living. 

Employers often wind up hiring the wrong salesperson because they base much of the qualification process on technical knowledge. “Does he or she have the technical competence to talk to our customers about what to do with the products/services we sell?” 

While it’s important for salespeople to understand what they sell, that won’t help you much if they don’t possess the skills to sell. These are the people who wind up trying to succeed in sales “by hook or by crook”, (READ: extending the cycle and erasing your margin)! They cost you more than they make you and should probably find another line of work. 

Another typical mistake made by employers is to trust the social image of what a salesperson is. This is what we would commonly call a “people-person”. In reality, the very attributes we see in a “people-person” are often the ones that lead to failure in sales. Why? Because a “people-person” is also a “people-pleaser”. He wants to avoid disappointing others. Sometimes in sales, however, you have to say “no” to clients/prospects or decline to agree to things they may demand of you to get their business. When the people-pleasing motivation overrides a people-person’s ability to manage a sale, it becomes a major hindrance to success. That’s not to say that people with highly social personalities can’t succeed in sales, but there are other, much more important attributes than social skills. Which brings us to... 

Key Three: Trust Your Instruments

“...pilots have to trust instruments more than their bottom end...The probability of an instrument failure is much lower than [the pilot’s] spatial disorientation.” – PlasticPilot.net (an aviation blog) 

When a pilot trusts his gut over his instruments, the results are often tragic. When an employer trusts his gut to recruit salespeople the results are similar! Charlie Hauck has coined a term to describe such employers: “KOWISO”. This represents their philosophy for identifying qualified candidates (I “Know One When I See One”). 

Many tools can help you qualify and select strong salespeople, but most KOWISO’s use only one: The Interview. But did you know when you hire based solely on an interview, your success ratio will be about 15%? Roughly 5 out of 6 “interview only” hires won’t make it to the 1-year mark! 

Charlie recommends you make the interview the LAST step in the process. This way, you interview ONLY those candidates who have an excellent chance of succeeding within your organization. 

Here are the stats: If you interview and use reference checks, your success rate will be approximately 25%. If you take those two steps and add a personality profile, your success rate jumps to about 45%. When you employ skills assessments as well, you’re up to 55-60%. Add in behavioral assessments, workplace motivators, and actual sales-specific measurements, and you’re batting .800! That moves your success rate from the abysmal 15% success rate of the KOWISO’s to the 80% level. Sure, you’ve spent a day or two longer in the hiring process, but it’s a lot cheaper than the months and –let’s be honest - sometimes years we retain non-productive hires. 

There simply isn’t enough room in this article to explain each of these tools in detail, but a simple Google search can help you get started. Why not set aside a little time to research the available tools for evaluating sales candidates? Why not do it this week? 

The time you invest in researching these tools might yield the best return on investment you’ll ever see! Charlie points out, “If someone is hired and they don’t make it... the minimal impact that people much smarter than me assign to a failed sales hire is 1.5 times that person’s salary. So if you have a 50k hiring mistake, that’s a 75k hit.” 

Let’s Recap: Here are the Three Keys to Hiring Successful Salespeople: 

Key 1 – Recruit Constantly - Not just when you need someone! 

Key 2 - Understand that most people don’t belong in sales – Get the RIGHT person for your company! 

Key 3 - Trust your instruments. – Sales is a real skill – not a feeling, so don’t go with your gut! 

Use these three simple keys, and you’ll spend less time hiring, and more time selling! 

You can learn more about Charlie Hauck and Growth Dynamics atwww.growthdynamicsonline.com.

The New Year is coming… what will your Legacy be?

Ever hear the story about the guy who faced tough times by going inside, closing the doors and hoping for the best?

Yea, me neither.

And for good reason. That story is not worth repeating

Invariably, all the great stories are about a regular guy who stared down insurmountable obstacles with grit, determination and a never-say-die attitude. They don’t make excuses. They don’t blame others. Most importantly, whether it’s Rocky Balboa, Lance Armstrong, or Frodo Baggins, these gritty characters never, ever, EVER quit, no matter what.

Were they tempted to quit? Sure they were. And that temptation always came when they reached the bottom. When Lance Armstrong was lying sick in the hospital, his body weakened and emaciated not only from the cancer, but from the effects of the medications to heal the cancer - do you think he wasn’t tempted to quit? When Rocky Balboa was getting pummeled by the hammer-fisted Drago, or when Frodo Baggins was lying tired and hungry on the side of Mount Doom, do you think they felt like quitting? Sure they did.

But they didn’t. And that’s why their stories are great. That’s why we tell them over and over again.

Of course there are other stories, but I specifically chose these stories, because even though two of them are fictional characters, these stories are about regular people. These people weren’t born with exceptionally good looks or a genius IQ or uncanny innate athletic ability that made things easy for them.

Sure, they had strengths, but we all have strengths. What made these people legends was their ability to just keep getting up and doing what they knew to do, and sticking with it no matter what. After defeating cancer, Lance Armstrong won the grueling Tour De France for the 7th time! Rocky Balboa brought the chemically-enhanced giant Drago to his knees and the diminutive hobbit Frodo Baggins climbed Mount Doom and saved Middle Earth!

And that, my friend, is what legends are made of.

Regular people like you and me who just won’t quit. It’s what international business building genius Chet Holmes calls “Pig-headed determination and discipline”.

As we stand here together, side by side, staring down an economic forecast that looks foreboding and uncertain at best, I’ve made a decision.

I’m not going to quit.

Instead I’ve decided that I’m going to work even harder this year than I did last year to help my customers grow their companies by providing the most effective audio marketing products and services on the market at a stunning value proposition.

I’d love to help you.

But I’m under no illusions.  I know that what I do isn’t going to be the most important factor to your success in the coming year.  I also know that it’s not the political environment or even the economic environment.

All of those things can have an effect, of course, but the most important factor in deciding your future and the future of your company is you.

You can either go and sit down and hope for the best or you can join me, rollup your sleeves,  get out the maps andchart a course for success together.

Times are tough.  The storm is coming.

Let’s create a Legacy!

Till next month . . . Stay Sharp!

The Single Greatest Key to the Success of Your Company Is...

by Kent Covington

What is the single greatest limitation to the growth of your company? What is the single greatest thing that can fuel its growth? The answers to both of these questions are one in the same. 

It’s not the economy. It’s not your staff. It’s not your competition. If you are the President of your company, the single greatest key to its success is...

YOU. 

The decisions you make determine the course of your company. They determine whether it treads water or takes off, whether it survives or dies.

John Maxwell, author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership calls this the “Law of the Lid”. It is the notion that the leader of any organization is ultimately the “lid” atop the organization. If–on a scale of 1 to 10–a leader is a “6”, the company he leads will never be a “7” or an “8”. 

However, there is a flip side to this coin. If you are a “7”, on a leadership scale of 1 to 10, it is equally unlikely that your business will be limited to a “3” or a “4”. You are both the greatest limitation to your company and its single most important asset. 

In short, as the leader of your company, it cannot grow in spite of you. It must grow BECAUSE of you! So, what exactly can you do to raise the “lid” and fuel the growth of your business? 

WORK ON YOUR COMPANY... NOT JUST IN IT. 

If you’re like most small business leaders, you spend the vast majority of your time managing day to day operations. It’s possible that you’re not only managing operations; you are performing them as well. You might spend a good bit of your time in the warehouse or behind the counter, serving customers. 

There is something to be said for that, to an extent, but let’s think of your company as an NFL or MLB franchise for a moment. Can you imagine a sports team whose General Manager spends nearly all of his time handling coaching duties, or maybe even suiting up and taking the field? Can a team accomplish anything great without someone at the top, concentrating on the big picture, charting a course, and improving the team? 

Many businesses struggle because the owner/leader spends more of his or her time in a coach’s or player’s uniform than in the General Manager’s chair. To put it another way, they spend more time working IN their business than they spend working ON it. 

What am I suggesting? Should you detach yourself from the front line of your business, buy a fluffy cushion for your desk chair and sequester yourself in your office, popping your head out only on occasion to bark out orders from on high? Certainly NOT! It is very wise to remain in touch with every aspect of your company’s operations. However, the fact remains… if you are not concentrating on the big picture, no one else will. No one else can. 

Just as a General Manager must continually work ON his team, and map out a plan to improve it… YOU are the person responsible for the growth of your company. You cannot allow yourself to be so preoccupied by working IN your business (handling day to day operations), that there is very little left of your time or energy to invest in improving the profitability of your company. 

THE DRAWING BOARD

Ok, in very practical terms, what can you start doing differently to fuel growth? 

First, beginning this week, delegate as many operational tasks as possible, and devote more time and attention to the long range health and growth of your business. 

Second, read and challenge yourself as much as possible. Read whatever you can get your hands on that might give you new ideas to grow your company. Don’t be afraid to close an office door and spend some time reading pertinent books, articles, and blogs. 

This might not feel quite right, at first. A little voice in your head may insist that you should be out working rather than at your desk reading. But remember, you are the only one who can lead your company forward. Whenever possible, let your staff turn the wrenches so you can concentrate on building a better engine. 

Next, if you have the freedom to do so, take a few days away from the office to think about your store, your warehouse, and your customers’ needs. Get away. Seriously. We’ve all heard it said that getting away can help you clear your thoughts, but it’s just a trite notion, right? Would it hold up to scrutiny in an episode of Myth Busters? 

Dr. Gregory Berns, who is a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and the Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics at Emory University (in other words, a really, really smart dude) says the following in his book Iconoclast: 

“Did you know that when you see the same thing over and over again, your brain uses less and less energy? Your mind already knows what it’s seeing, so it doesn’t make the effort to process the event again. Just putting yourself in new situations can make you see things differently and jump-start your creativity.” “The surest way to evoke the imagination is to confront the perceptual system with people, places and things it hasn’t seen before.” 

It’s true… getting away from office can open up your mind to new possibilities. So do it! 

OK, so you’ve got some time to think in a comfortable, outside (of the office) environment. Now what? Now, start thinking of new ways to improve your company in three areas: management, customer service, and marketing. This article would turn into a book if we tried to cover all of the considerations in each of these three areas, but here are a few things to think about and ask yourself as you ponder your action steps: 

MANAGEMENT: How can you better reward employees for exceptional performance? How can you increase operational efficiencies? 

CUSTOMER SERVICE: Frankly, good customer service is expected, so “good” is not good enough. You’ll know you’re on the right track when customers are genuinely surprised by your service. Literally… surprised. Blow them away with your service. Find out what all of your competitors offer, and make sure you are at least a level or two beyond them in terms of customer services. Your return policies, delivery… whatever it may be, make sure you offer more than your competitors. 

MARKETING: In what way(s) do you offer a greater benefit to your clients than your competition? Be specific in your answer! “Our people make the difference” is not an acceptable answer to that question. The advantage you offer must be very specific and tangible, and it must be something your buyers truly care about. We’ll talk more about this in the December issue of the WinMarketing newsletter. 

Figure out how you are tangibly different and better, and look for ways to communicate that difference. Also, consider how your marketing communications can focus on your customers needs more than your qualities. Use the words “you” and “yours” far more often than “we”, “us”, “our”, or your company name. 

And one final note in regard to moving your company forward… Never, NEVER scale back your customer service or your marketing in a slow economy. These are the two most important factors in keeping your existing customers, and winning over new buyers. Marketing and customer service build market share, and in a recession, you need all the market share you can get. Stay on offense! 

IN SUMMARY

1 – Delegate operational tasks to free up time to work ON your company, rather than just working IN it. 
2 – Take time to read and challenge yourself as much as possible. 
3 – Get away from the office and free your mind to find solutions. 
4 – Consider how you can improve your company in terms of your management, customer service, and marketing. Remember, YOU are the single greatest key to the success of your company. 

You can grow your company, even in a slow economy, if you stay on offense, and work ON your company more often than you work in it. Here’s to your growth!

Time for Something New... Or Is It?

by Jimmy Harris

Well, here we are well in to a brand new year! And since you're about to start a new fiscal year as well, I thought it would be a good time to consider new technology. Specifically, when is the best time to adopt new technology from a profitability standpoint? But before I delve in to the topic, I'd like to take a quick look back at 2007. 

Thanks to so many of you, 2007 was another solid year of growth for Harris Communications, Inc, and winonhold.com. After 12 years of service, we were named WinWholesale's Preferred Vendor for on-hold marketing. (Many thanks to Joe Verow and JW Day!). All told, more than 80 Winwholesale stores came to us to help them grow in 2007, bringing our total number of Winwholesale customers to just a few more than 265 - and 6 new stores have already signed up since New Year's Day! 

So, whether you've been our customer for 10 years or 10 days - or you're a future customer (we hope)- please know that I speak for the entire staff when I say that I sincerely appreciate your business! Please feel free to call me personally any time. 

OK, on to technology...

Best I can tell, people generally fall into one of two types. 

First, there's Gadget Gary. Mr. Gary had a cell phone in 1984. Of course it cost him $2,300, it worked intermittently, it came in a bag, weighed 19 lbs, had to be installed professionally, and only worked IN the car... but he had one! Today, Gadget uses his 4 ounce phone to send and receive e-mails, capture and display photos, keep up with his appointments, listen to his expansive music library, manage his stock portfolio, wake him up in the morning and keep up with his fantasy football league! Gadget, who doesn't mind a little risk, adopts new technologies early - as soon as they're available on the market. He figures he'd better invest in the new technology, or his competitors will - and he'll get left behind! Are you a Gadget Gary? 

Now, let's consider Mr. "Slowpoke" Sam. Sam didn't buy a cell phone in 1984, and only uses one today because his wife makes him. He knows how to make a call, and how to answer a call (when he remembers to keep it with him) and that's about it. Slowpoke Sam is risk-averse, and doesn't believe he should invest in new technology until he absolutely must. Why not? Well, first of all, he has seen technologies come and go, without really ever developing. (Remember Video Discs?). Secondly, he figures the ones that last will be a lot cheaper in a few years. If you're over 40, you might remember when digital watches were $250, and had less features than the $4 digital calculator watches you can buy at any discount store. Mr. Sam doesn't want to spend money on something that isn't going to show a profit right away. Are you a Slowpoke Sam? 

Next month I'll give you some guidelines on how to decide if a technology is right for you. In the mean time, I'd love to hear your take on it. Do you believe in a pro-active, forward-thinking attitude when adopting technology? Or are you part of the "wait and see" camp? If you do have some thoughts on this, please send them to me, and I'll include in in the second half of this article! Who knows, you may just save someone a lot of money . . . or help them make more! 

You can email your feedback to this article, or for any other reason at jimmy@winonhold.com 

Happy Inventory, and till next month . . . Stay Sharp!

Time for Something New... Or Is It? (part 2)

3 Tips to Determine if That Technology Is Worth Your Investment

By Jimmy Harris

Inventory is over, and now it’s time to get ready for annual meetings!  As you’re lookingat all your income and expenses from the last year – and considering what to spend money on next year – I thought this would be a great time to continue looking at how new technologies can impact your company. 

If you read last month’s article, we compared “Gadget Gary”  - an early adopter of all new technologies to“Slowpoke Sam” – who only adopts new technology when he is absolutely forced to.   Interestingly, both Gadget and Slowpoke believe   their method is the best for ROI.  But which one is right? 

As with most things, the answer is somewhere in the middle.   On the one hand, if you adopt every new gadget on the market as soon as it comes out, you are going to pay the highest price, and you are going to end up investing heavily in some technologies that never get off the ground.   On the other hand, if you wait too long, you could really lose a lot of business to your competitors who are using new technology to do things faster, better and cheaper. 

And not to be an alarmist, but if you fall off the proverbial wagon too far on either side, you might have to close shop. 
 
So how do you decide which new technologies to adopt, and which ones to forego?   Well, every business is different from the next one, but I have come up with a few guidelines based on my own bumps and bruises that I’m happy to share with you. 

Guideline#1:  Determine the real cost of the technology.   This means you have to look beyond the sticker price, and determine what it will cost you to actually use the new technology.  In our business, we do a lot of small run brochures – 200-300 copies.  Some years ago, I saw the local print shop was advertising color copying while you wait.    So, I went to the office, created some beautiful brochures, and happily took them to have them printed.    A half hour later I was back at my office, suffering from $1 per page per side sticker shock!   I ended up buying a high quality ink-jet printer for about $500, and reduced my cost to around 30 cents per page, per side.   Of course it took hoursto do 100 copies, and I could only do one side at a time,  but I could run the copies in the evening, and if something didn’t go wrong (and it did about 50% of the time)  I’d have my brochures in the morning!  So, best case scenario on a two-sided brochure was two days.   Not a perfect solution, but better than paying $2/page! 

A couple of years ago we bought a laser printer for about $350 that made GREAT color copies much faster than my ink-jet printer.  Still didn’t do double sided stuff, but it was much faster, and I had heard laser toner was cheaper than ink-jet refills.   This one fell into the “I should’ve done my homework” category!   While black toner is cheaper than black ink, color is a whole different ball game!   When the starter-toner ran out, we found it was cheaper to buy this same printer again - with starter-toner – than to replace the toner!   This was a mistake we lived with until about 6 months ago, when I decided to research laser printers again, and took a look at three different printers offered by Dell.   We bought the printer with the highest sticker price because it ended up being the least expensive printer to use!   Now, I can print 100 full-color, laser quality, double sided brochures in about 6 minutes at a toner cost of about 15 cents per brochure!  I paid about $750 for the printer, which is rated for95K copies per month.   

Guideline #2: Think about how this technology will impact the other business systems you already have in place.   Take for instance computer software and operating systems.  Just before we bought our new printers last year, we bought some new computers.  And all the computers we found were running Windows hot new “Vista” operating system.   Trouble was, we would have had to upgrade at least two or three of our other software packages on multiple computers to be able to use Vista.  This would have been an expensive software investment, in addition to paying our IT folks to upgrade all the computers, plus the down time while our people were learning the new software.    

Of course, we’d have also had to buy more licenses to upgrade other computers in the system to Vista, and pay for hardware upgrades for the slightly older computers to run the memory-hungry Vista.  After all this expense, we still wouldn’t have the ability to do anything we could not already do with Windows XP!    So what did we do?  We finally found a supplier who would provide Windows XP on a limited number of models, and bought those computers.    I know we’ll eventually have to upgrade to Vista, but we were able to forego the additional expenses for at least another year.  

Guideline #3: Think about how the new technology will benefit your customer.  About 8 years ago, we wanted to offer our customers remote-load on-hold marketing to make it easier to implement and manage their on-hold marketing.    When we called our supplier, they immediately suggested we sign up for the latest and greatest new technology that would allow us to offer higher- than-CD quality recordings sent over the phone line as digital packets.  We promptly invested in all the head-in hardware and software, learned the product and began offering it, designed the brochures and started selling.  We soon learned that this technology worked great in urban areas, but not as well in rural areas, where most of our customers are.  Why?  Because the telephone company infrastructure didn’t allow enough bandwidth in many rural areas to send the size packets we were trying to send before they would simply “time out”.    

So while the customer had a unit in place that could receive and play high quality audio – we couldn’t get the audio to them!  After a few months of trying to make this work, we decided to drop back one technological step to a unit that allows us to play the actual audio over the phone line.  Now we could get in, load the audio and get out without a lot of hassle.  And you know what the real kicker is?  While the newer units do play a higher quality audio signal, you simply cannot tell the difference over a telephone line.   

As a side note, I continue to keep my eyes and ears open and test new on-hold marketing systems and equipment every year.   I’ve even seen some come on the scene and become obsolete in just a few years.  I’m glad we didn’t adopt those.   Sometimes it is really tempting to offer the newest thing on the market just so we can seem more “cutting edge”.  I still haven’t found a new technology that provides a better solution for our customers than the ones we offer right now.  But stay tuned, you never know when things will change! 

There are many other questions to consider when you are looking at new technologies. Some of those questions include:  What is the time cost?  What is the marketing cost?  What is the learning curve?  What are my customers doing?  Probably the most important one – and one we haven’t looked at yet – is “What is the expected ROI”? These are all questions you’ll have to ask yourself.

I’ll leave you with one parting thought, to paraphrase the good Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park fame:  “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”! 

Till next month . . . Stay Sharp! 

What Separates YOU From the Herd?

By Josh Watkins

While it may be hard to come by in real life, when it comes to advertising, everyone claims to have "great customer service." From big-box chains to mom-and-pop shops, you would struggle to find a single company that doesn't use words like "legendary", "dedicated", or sometimes even "award-winning" to describe their service.

Who knows, some of them may have great service. But because they are just using "ad speak" it is quite literally filtered out by most people, if it isn't specific. (For more on coming up with a good USP, see Jimmy Harris' article "Delivered in 30 Minutes or Your Toilet is FREE" in this Newsletter.)

Ask yourself how many times you hear these descriptions about customer service:

• Friendly and courteous
• Second-to-none
• Dedicated
• Award-winning
• World-class
• Knowledgable
• Expert
• Caring
• Genuine

Every commercial you've ever heard probably lists at least one of these cliches. And while you may use some of them from time to time, you also want to try to qualify what you mean when you say them. In other words, don't just say you have great service. Say you "promise customers won't have to wait more than 10 minutes. Ever." (And then make sure you don't make them wait 11.)

As a decision maker, you need to give your customers something different - something unique they can't get anywhere else.

How should you do this?

• Step 1: Stop describing your staff with cliches.
• Step 2: Find your company's unique selling point.
• Step 3: Tell your customers about it.

Consider the specific actions that make your customer service staff better than the competition.

Don't say your staff is friendly and courteous. Say, "We'll remember your name."

Don't say your staff is knowledgeable. Say, "Our customer service staff has more than 500 years of combined experience in this industry."

Separate your business from the competition and use real descriptions to illustrate the great work they do. If you make this one small change, you can distance yourself from the competition and emerge as an industry leader.

Who do your customers SEE when they hear your on-hold marketing?

By Johnny Gailer

As a smart business owner or marketing professional, you probably already use winonhold.com to help your business sound more professional, communicate your competitive advantages, improve your customer service, and inform customers about your new products.

But how much do you think about the music you are playing on hold?

Music is what creates the feel in which your messages are received.  Music breathes life into your messaging, and associates your brand with different images.

So what brand are you communicating?

Below we've compiled a list of our music genres and put them side by side with the people that those genres are associated with.

Look at the people.  Their clothes, their facial expressions, their surroundings.  You know these people.

Take a look and see what your customers see when they hear the music you're playing:

If you need help choosing your music, just give us a ring and tell us the image you want to give your customers.