Remember

Remember when we…? Remember when you…? Remember the place….? How many times have we said these words or were asked these words? Let’s add one more to this; what do your prospects and customers “Remember” about you or your business?

Be careful how you answer this question and make sure you are being honest because of the thousands of businesses and individuals that we have worked with; very few have answered this correctly.

I am not saying these people actually lied about it I am saying they really didn’t know the truth and were going off of assumptions. Remember what they say about assumptions – you can finish that thought on your own (if you don’t know, email us at the address below or post your comment and we will give you the answer).

When you reach out to a company or an individual within that company, how are you doing it? How are you making yourself known? Are you getting past the gatekeepers only to blow it after all of the effort to get there?

Once you are there, how are you conducting yourself? What will these people think of you and how will they remember you once you leave?

Many people don’t look at the tone of their letters or emails. This is a huge mistake as many of the recipients of this information will automatically feel a negative reaction to these communications and you will never know it.

Still others think the receptionist and others aren’t worthy of their time or even a kind word or smile. This is the wrong way to go and I can tell you from experience that you are going to lose on every level with this type of thinking. Let me share a few examples:

I was running a tech company some years back and we were working very hard to get in with one of the largest systems integrator's in the world. After two years of hard work we were finally in. We were winning millions of dollars of business every month – life was good!

One day a person from this large company came to visit us to give us even more business. They had a conversation with the owner of the company which didn’t go well. The owner of this company was not a friendly person and made it known to everyone. After the two of them met and had what was supposed to be a light-hearted discussion, in less than one hour all of the business we were doing came to an abrupt halt because of the rudeness of the owner.

To make matters worse, a relative of this person ran another facility we were doing business with and that was cancelled as well. All of this because you don’t want to smile and be nice to someone, doesn’t this seem a little short-sighted?

In this real life example a company that we had called on for quite some time would never give us any work. I decided to go and find out for myself what was going on. I met one of the secretaries there and treated her with respect and asked her if she knew why we couldn’t get any business.

She told me that our people that were calling on the company were not friendly and she wasn’t going to help them. We removed the unfriendly people from this situation and began to slowly rebuild our relationship. Not long afterwards, we had appointments with the Senior V.P. of this company and went on to win many millions of dollars in business, just because we treated them right.

To this day we are remembered for being friendly, outgoing and kind. We can call on these people now (and we have done so), and have had them give us business; help us in situations, introduce us to more people, etc.

Never forget that the average person knows 250 people. Although they may never share a great experience with all of their contacts, they will certainly share a bad experience with many more of them.

Remember, it is vitally important how you treat people because you will be remembered for it. Much of your business now and in the future depends on how people “Remember” you.

Important:

If you know one person that would really benefit and could change their circumstances with this information; be their hero and share this post with them right now!

If you would like help with this or any other business, sales, marketing, social media issues and more, contact us at:

Until our next post – we wish you all success!

Dean Marchese