I know you love your business. Do your customers?

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What’s the ‘RAP’ on you and your business?

What do you mean you don’t know? YOU CREATED IT!

Just ask Mother Google. She is standing by with millions of info-bits and info-bites about you and your business that you (or anyone) can have in a nanosecond. For free.

What is posted about you (not what you have posted about yourself) on Google, or on any social media, is a reflection of how others perceive you. It’s also what others, who are looking for you or what you sell, may think of you once they find you. In short, it’s your ‘RAP.’

The old word is ‘rap sheet.’ It was a police term for a summary of what was factual about your past – your record of events – mostly bad. It was a forerunner to Google.

I am creating and redefining a new ‘rap sheet’ that encompasses both good and bad. It’s not just about ‘what was’ – your 21st century RAP sheet is about both ‘what was’ and ‘what is.’ And just like the old rap sheet – you create it.

Unlike the old rap sheet, the new RAP sheet can help you attract and grow IF you’re aware of your online presence and how that affects and impacts your sales and your business.

The new RAP sheet – or should I say the ‘RAP of sales’ – is broken down into segments that define the process by letter (R.A.P.) and once you read them, you will at once have an understanding and a game plan to improve in each area. You’ll also have insight as to why the new RAP on you can make or break your business.

Here are the RAP elements:

  • Reputation. Built slowly over time, your reputation defines your present situation and your next sale. It documents how you react, respond, and recover from service calls and issues, and it cements your image both online and in the customer’s thoughts. Your reputation is a reflection of your status in the business world, and a reality check from your customer’s perspective.

DO THIS: Take responsibility for your reputation, and take all necessary actions to build and preserve it.

  • Attraction. Not the ‘law of attraction’ – rather VALUE attraction. What value-based messages are you sending? What messages are your customers responding to? How are these messages creating a bigger, more responsive, more positive, more loyal customer base? Everything from daily tweets and blog posts to one-on-one customer interactions create your word-of-mouth and word-of-mouse attraction.

ASK YOURSELF: What’s attractive about me and my business? Why would a customer follow me? What do I have to do to create more positive followers?

  • Profit. Not your profit, THEIR profit. Make certain that every customer knows and understands how they win AFTER purchase, how they use and produce, and how they benefit and enjoy. Concentrating on customer value also has a positive internal effect. When customers are happy and feel valued, it creates a loyalty-base of customers AND employees. Profit is way more than money.

Here are a few companies you can look at as examples of good, mixed, and bad:
BAD RAP: Borders, Blackberry, Yellow Pages, AOL
MIXED RAP: American Airlines, Goldman Sachs, JC Penney, DISH Network
GOOD RAP: Amazon, Zappos, Southwest, Bloomberg

It’s easy to see the RAP of others. It’s often way more difficult (and painful) to see your own.

Here’s a bit more on how you create your own rap:

  • Your corporate and personal philosophy guides your words, actions, and deeds. Your philosophy is comprised of the principles you live by. Beyond your mission, it’s how you help others and how you live your core values.
  • Create a culture of comradery and support, communication and truthful information, service and response, and availability and helpfulness. Culture is your long-term essence. Your spirit. Look at all the companies I listed under ‘good rap.’ They all have amazing internal cultures. Not a coincidence.
  • Treat your people right and they will treat your customers beyond your expectations.

Reputation, Attraction and Profit are THE three words that define your business in the minds, responses, posts, and actions (including purchases) of your customers and prospects. Now that you know the words, their definitions, and their impact, it may be time to do a review – both internal and on Google. Identify your RAP, define it, and make whatever positive changes are necessary to build it.

Your RAP is out there – the question is: what are you doing about it?

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

How is a cup of coffee like a sale? When it’s with a customer!

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I like coffee. Dark, black coffee. Espresso. No cream. No sugar. Just dark, black coffee. You?

But I look at coffee differently than you do. I don’t “wake up and drink it.” I venture out to a coffee shop and an early morning meeting, and oh, by the way, I have coffee.

My goal each day is to have an early morning cup of coffee with someone that can help me enhance relationships, make connections, build value, and make sales. As a traveler, I can’t do this every day. But I try my best to do it as often as I am able.

A meeting is a brand new way to look at the value of a cup of coffee. You may look at coffee as a cost or an expense. To me, coffee is an investment of time. It’s not “how I drink it.” Rather, it’s “who I drink it with.”

KEY POINT OF UNDERSTANDING: Whenever I meet someone for coffee in the morning, I find the meeting is relaxed and fun. It’s a genuine exchange of information. Always informal and humorous. And it’s usually with someone I do business with or could do business with.

I try to have these meetings early. Very early. Between seven and eight in the morning. Sometimes I have two breakfasts. One at seven and one and eight.

Oftentimes my appointments meet each other, so it becomes an additional networking opportunity. Many of my customers, prospects, and connections have done business with my other customers, prospects, and connections.

PERSONAL NOTE: When I’m done my with coffee and my meeting is over, I get back home as fast as I can so I can take our young daughter to school by nine. And no, I can’t do it every day, but that is the goal every day.

Think about the impact of that. A sales call BEFORE the day starts.

HERE’S HOW THAT IDEA APPLIES TO YOU:

If you have one cup of coffee a day with a customer or prospect, that’s equal to 250 sales calls THIS YEAR that will be relaxed, build relationships, make sales, gain referrals, and create business opportunities. Coffee and sales – not just coffee.

What could you do with an additional 250 meetings, appointments, or actual sales calls? How much extra income would that convert to? How much quicker could you advance your sales cycle? My wallet is pulsating just thinking about it.

“But Jeffrey,” you whine, “My customers are scattered all over the country.”

QUIT WHINING AND START THINKING: Drink coffee at your desk with a connection via Skype or vsee.com. Send Starbucks gift cards via aceofsales.com. It’s so unusual that customers will set the meeting, and then talk about how innovative it was.

“But Jeffrey,” you whine, “What do I talk about during the meeting?”

ANYTHING BUT BUSINESS AT THE START OF THE MEETING.

  • Talk family
  • Talk kids
  • Talk hobbies
  • Talk sports
  • Talk vacation
  • Talk travel
  • Talk fashion
  • Talk books
  • Talk movies
  • Talk culture
  • Talk passion
  • Talk ideas
  • Talk social media

Ask questions that allow you to ask more questions. NO NEWS, NO WEATHER, NO POLITICS, NO RELIGION, or anything negative about people or things.

“But Jeffrey,” you whine, “What tone should I set inside the meeting?

HOW TO SAY IT:

  • Talk positive
  • Talk truth
  • Talk relaxed
  • Talk about things in common
  • Talk humor

“But Jeffrey,” you whine, “What sales tools should I bring?”

TOOLS MAKE SALES FAST AND EASY:

  • Bring a referral
  • Bring a book
  • Bring an idea
  • Bring an influential friend
  • Bring your Instagram on an iPad

REMEMBER AND MEMORIALIZE:

  • Take notes
  • Take a photo
  • Ask for his or her favorite – quote, book, movie, team, player
  • Make another appointment at the end of the meeting
  • It’s under five bucks
  • It doesn’t interfere with your workday

“But Jeffrey,” you whine, “When do I start talking business?”

When the customer brings it up. Talk business when THEY START.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

It’s Your ‘Reputation’ Stupid: the Real ‘R’ in CRM

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As the co-inventor of ACT! contact management software, the product credited as the catalyst for the Customer Relationship Management industry, I’m surprisingly not a champion of the concept of ‘managing relationships’ at all. I don’t think entering data, scheduling activities, or even communicating with someone amounts to ‘management’ in any meaningful way.

Even if the concept of managing customer relationships was the premise for the industry, the actual result is little more than a tool for Management to oversee an employee’s activity, communication, and progress with their customers and prospects. CRM systems are often positioned as an employee’s tool for building or maintaining meaningful relationships is little more than a method of ‘keeping tabs’ on salespeople.

Networking Alone Isn’t the Answer
It’s never just what you know, but whom you know that matters. But anyone can purchase a list of names. No matter what industry you’re in, the quality of your connections trumps the sheer quantity of names in your database. Attending events, shaking hands, collecting business cards – nothing wrong with that, per se, but the person with the most business cards doesn’t necessarily win. The same can be said of social networking: sending dozens of connection requests doesn’t equate to building relationships.

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About the Author

Mike MuhneyCRM pioneer Mike Muhney, the co-creator of ACT! software, is CEO of mobile relationship management purveyor vipOrbit – the first relationship-centric contact manager solution enabling mobile business professionals to manage their contacts, calendar and client/customer interactions across Mac, iPhone and iPad platforms. He may be reached at www.VIPOrbit.com.

Moving on from ROI to ROE, a Return on Empathy

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Business has always concentrated on Return on Investment (ROI) as the primary metric to calculate success. However, innovations in the neurosciences to developments in social media have revealed that profitability should no longer be relegated to sales figures and profit margins alone. Increasingly, to create sustainable customer relationships, businesses must attend to innovations in psychology, and invest in the emotional needs of their customers. Those making this shift will gain a significant ROE – Return on Empathy.

Investing in Empathy

A business that invests in empathy devotes itself to understanding the emotional needs and motivations of its customers, and aligns itself to meet them. Companies have increasingly embraced the role of emotion in selling products and services, but often merely pay lip service to its importance, without understanding how to harness it.

We know human motivation is extremely complex – typically people don’t say what they think, or even think what they report. As a result significant business resources are wasted buy an over-reliance on market research that poses only rational questions but neglects to probe customers’ emotional reactions that lie hidden within their answers. When businesses look beyond the rational data, and into the meaning behind their customers’ feelings, and behaviors, they will recognize the human needs that drive decision making.

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About the Author

Mark Ingwer PhD is a consumer psychologist and the managing partner of Insight Consulting Group, a global marketing and strategy consultancy specializing in market research and consumer insights. He has over 25 years of experience applying his unique blend of psychology, marketing, and business acumen to helping companies optimize their brand and marketing strategy based on an in-depth understanding of their customers. He is the author of the book, Empathetic Marketing published by Palgrave.

How to Protect Your Professional Edge

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Not only do we have access to countless types of media and information created by others, we are now able to record, organize, and recall our own personal information in more ways than ever before possible. If you can’t remember where you parked your car, it’s not a problem. Just click the fob on your keychain and listen for that telltale beep. If you lose your iPhone or iPad, again, it’s not a problem. You can use the Find My iPhone/iPad app, assuming you originally enabled your device, of course. If you’re not quite sure how to get somewhere, just plug in the address in your car’s Navigation system, or you could even use a Navigation app on your smartphone. If you forget where you saved that picture from your last vacation, or worse, a legal document that you now desperately need, don’t panic. With online storage like iCloud® or Dropbox®, you can access files anywhere. The examples are numerous, but they all point to the fact that technology is an ever-present part of our lives, saving us time, effort, and even memory.

The Risks and Rewards
Along with the perks I mentioned, there are a few pitfalls. Having access to these tools has negatively affected our ability to actually remember the little things. And of course, there are more things to remember than ever before. Do you know 10 telephone numbers? Okay, ten might have been pushing it. How about five? Yeah, me neither. If we can’t remember five phone numbers, what leads us to believe that we are capable of remembering the essential details of our business relationships?

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About the Author

Mike MuhneyCRM pioneer Mike Muhney, the co-creator of ACT! software, is CEO of mobile relationship management purveyor vipOrbit – the first relationship-centric contact manager solution enabling mobile business professionals to manage their contacts, calendar and client/customer interactions across Mac, iPhone and iPad platforms. He may be reached at www.VIPOrbit.com.