How to stop customer drain
If you're like every other sales professional on the planet, 80% of your sales come from the same 20% of your customers. Your biggest challenge is to keep the customers you already have loyal so you can retain business while closing new prospects.
How are you doing that now? Let me answer that question in three words: Not well enough.
Want a great way a fast way an effective way an inexpensive way to do it? Sure you do. One hitch it requires work, thought, quality and action. Rats.
Answer: Your personal newsletter.
A newsletter helps you keep the attention of current customers. Elaine Floyd, author, speaker and newsletter expert extraordinaire, calls it Bathtub Selling. "Here's how it works," Floyd explains. "You're trying to fill the bathtub, that is, expand your customer base. While pouring water into the tub, you want to make sure none of the nice hot water (present customers) escapes down the drain. Think of the newsletter as the best soap, fine aromas, silky bath oils and the plug in the bottom of the tub.
"A good newsletter keeps you in front of customers, adds value to your services, establishes your expertise and credibility and saves you valuable selling time," Floyd adds. "It bathes the customer in the essence of 'you' without you being there."
You've no doubt heard about the great things that newsletters can do, but just can't find the time to get one written. If so, you're also getting used to losing some business here and there because you
didn't make a key call at the right time, but your competitors did.
You're upset when you find out that someone else just gets some business from your best buyer because, "I didn't know you offered that product or service." After all, you can't be everywhere at once, right?
Wrong. A good newsletter is like a my-own-clone delivered through the mail. You can put together a simple one- or two-page letter, photocopy it onto your letterhead and be everywhere at once. And, you can do your newsletter in a few hours.
Come on jump in, the (bath) water's fine.
If you're still not sure that a newsletter will help your selling, take Elaine Floyd's quick quiz:
Do you have good customers you'd like to stay in touch with without interrupting them with phone calls or visits?
Is your product or service line changing quickly?
Do some of your best customers not know about your latest product offerings and how each one benefits them?
Do your customers like hearing stories of businesses similar to theirs and how they've been successful?
Can you share information that saves your customers time and money, helps them get more business or prepares them for the future?
Have you heard customers say, "I didn't know you did that?"
If you answered "yes" to three or more of these six questions, then you need a newsletter yesterday. Your best customers are headed for the drain. And your competition is at the end of the pipe with a bucket.
Newsletters are powerful so are information, sales, customer loyalty, reorder, and referral. If it's so powerful, why don't all salespeople have one? Why don't they all produce one?
Simple answer: Most salespeople won't do the hard work it takes to make selling easy.
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of "The Sales Bible" and "Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless." President of North Carolina-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts training programs on selling and customer service. He can be e-mailed at salesman@gitomer.com.
