Now I realize that most people in business have heard or have been trained on the concept that “the customer is always right” but it’s a trap for your business and not a long-range strategy or operating basis that you should subscribe to. 

The truth is, it was you that came up with your business idea. You have created it everyday and worked out the kinks – not your customer. Customers don’t always know what they need or want until you acutally present it to them. While it is very important to listen to the customer to understand their needs or problems – it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to take every suggestion or to listen to their ideas for how to operate your company. 

Your job is to solve their problem. Stick to what you do and stick to your ideas for how to accomplish that. Become intimately familiar with the customers problems and then work out the solutions based on your own insights and knowledge to attain what is needed. If you operate on the premise that the customer is always right, I can almost guarantee that this will lead you off your course down a dark path that you shouldn’t be. You’ve built an entire company based on what you have come up with, your ideas, your methods and the customer signed up because of it. Deal with any suggestions or complaints as they come up, sure. But don’t deviate off course based on listening to everything the customer say’s until one day…. your progress slows or declines because you’ve been changing your company based on “the customer is always right”. 

Know your company. Know your clients problems and then know the methods to solve them and stick to it. Continue to improve your company to solve the problem better but don’t get distracted by customer input, ideas or complaints. If you solve the problem and get good at doing what you do and you consistently impropve what you do based on what you know, you won’t need to worry about the customers input because they will be extremely pleased with what you have done. 

Here’s a great quote from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, that relates to this:

“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

So focus your efforts. Improve your systems and delivery for what you do but ultimately you have to know your company goals, purposes and who you are as well as what you are trying to be. That will carve your company into the ideal vision you are trying to attain. The customer doesn’t know what the vision is or how to get there and they never will so just focus on doing what you do and servicing them better to handle their problem, need or want and everyone will be happy. 

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

It’s pretty common to hear people complain about not having enough time or being busy. There never seems to be enough time right? Too much work and not enough time to do it. However, a huge sum of the problem is not related to how much time there is, it’s related to what people do to themselves that cause bottle necks in their schedules and gobble up their time.

I could list out many many examples of this but for the purpose of keeping this short and sweet, I will name just one. Decisions. Taking forever to make them, that is. Here’s an example: your company needs a product or service that has been discussed in the past and everyone agrees that it’s something that you do indeed need or want. You have found a company to do the work and all seems to look good. At this point, rather than making an immediate decision to move forward swiftly to get what you want – meetings are held, emails are exchanged back and forth, time is added, people need to approve it, questions and objections are voiced…… well….. you know this example well I’m sure.

If you observe this situation or any situation just like it, you can clearly see where your time goes. It gets eaten by the simplest of things. Learn to make fast decision and you will learn the art of creating time. WAY more time! Do not hesitate to pull the trigger on decisions. Make them fast and make them now. By disciplining yourself to get into the habit of this, you can get a lot more done. You will start to have an abundance of time. Time is not the issue, the issue is the things that waste time and gobble up the little time you have. Focus on making fast decision for everything and complete cycles related to decision immediately and you will start to recapture your time.

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

In sales, you can frequently be knocked off of your position by your prospect which can lead to no sale. What I mean by this is that sometimes the prospect will push you on a negotiation point that you attempt to handle and cater to, only to realize that this didn’t close the sale.

Bending over backwards and allowing every request from the prospect will not close the sale. You must have the ability to hold your position and stay true to what you sell and what you can or cannot do. Use tactful communication to steer the conversation where you want to go and handle objections rather than just buckle to them. It’s OK to say “no”. In fact, it can be an incredible negotiating tool and sales tool to simply say, “I’m sorry but we can’t make that work but here is how we can address this…” or simply walk away from the deal if you can’t handle the concern. You would be amazed at how walking away from a deal can be a powerful tool to close the sale. Many prospects will reach back even stronger after you have walked away from it.

The key point here is to stay strong on your position. For example, if the price of any item is $1000 and the prospect wants it for $900, you can simply say, “we can’t do it for that price but the truth is, the market price for this is $2000 so you are already getting the best rate and dealing with us, we will provide a best practices guide at the end to help you with this which will help you dramatically improve sales from this service….” With this example, you hold your position while selling them and concluding the deal with a value add. Be smart about how to handle each situation and just keep in mind that buckling under pressure from the prospects demands will not help you make a sale. You’re better off to hold your position and use tactful communication to steer the deal toward the desired outcome.

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

It’s a simple concept but few recognize it or actually apply it to sales or business in general. Care. You have to care about your prospect. Care about your client. Care to be interested. No, not the fake kind that comes across as awkwardness on the receiving end. The authentic kind. Actually be interested in your prospect or client. Ask them questions. Take some time to study their site to clearly understand their company and where they may need help and where you may fit in. See, all too many salespeople clearly only care about one thing – their commission to fatten their pocket but the truth is, that is the longest and hardest route you could take. Instead, focus on caring authentically about the prospect. There is a reason or purpose or need that they are trying to handle or resolve which is why they called you. Care to find out what the reason or purpose is. Understand it. Ask questions. Problem solve with them to help handle it. Get excited about them and their company and focus on helping them attain their goal faster. Be genuine and care. This is your fastest route to actually making a sale. It’s actually difficult to express this one factor in text format in a blog but all I can really tell you is that you have to care genuinely about the prospect or client enough to be truly interested in them and focused on helping them. Care enough to have engaging dialog, even if it goes off track leading to things like family, travel or life – care to listen, care to be interested and care to genuinely help. Believe me, it will come across to your prospect and they will love you for it. You want faster sales? This is the way. Care.
- Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Just a note on how contraction relates to expansion and why contraction is neccessary. When you expand at a large level in a short amount of time after a lot of hard work, push through and ultimately attainment of the expansion goals you set out for, it’s natural for some level of contraction to follow right after. It doesn’t have to of course – there are ways to quickly stabalize and increase the expansion even further but don’t get beat up by the contraction should it occur. Rather, use the time to evaluate what flaws or weaknesses the expansion helped reveal, define what the new expansion goals are, get the team re-organized and energized and put in systems and operations that help bolster the current level as well as allow for the new level you plan to expand to.

This constant ebb and flow of expansion and contraction continues while you grow. It’s natural. There’s no need to freak out about it. Just ensure that you organize behind all expansion to stabalize the growth and help contribute to new levels of expansion. Otherwise, the contraction will stick and the whole activity becomes a little shakey which hurts your momentum.

So use the contraction to quickly identify what needs to be addressed, address it, plan for new expansion and hit the ground hard to push the next major targets through to complete. You will find your contractions will become larger and larger to soon become bigger that your previous highest ever expansion levels. So as long as the overall stats in the area are trending up – just keep doing this over and over to handle both expansion and contraction accordingly.

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

I realize that planning can seem like a waste of time or an extra headache but it will save you a huge amount of time and wheel-spinning throughout your week. I see a lot of people just go to work and get into the motion of work and handle actions as they come and attempt to just produce but there is very little forward motion related to this. What we are looking to attain here is precise, predictable forward motion that conquers goals. So, here is what I want you to do – take time to plan your week. On Sunday, sit down and write or type out exactly what is needed to be done for the week in order to attain your goals. Make it clear, concise and actionable. If you’re in sales, list every cycle you are working on and the actions needed to close each cycle this week. Be thoughtful about the physical steps that must be done to execute and attain each action. Print it out or write it down on a notepad – whatever works for you but have it all worked out. Then, when Monday comes, you simply need to execute the plan. Stick to the plan. Push the plan through. Get it done. That’s it. Don’t try to just “be productive” with no game plan. Be thorough and make a defined plan and then do it. Simple. Try it out.
– Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

In sales, there comes a point when you have to ask for the close in some form or fashion. Now this can be a little bit of an awkward moment for many. Some people make common mistakes at this point and then experience the after thoughts after hanging up the phone or leaving the meeting with the distinct feeling of…. “oh… damn it… I should have said [insert appropriate line]” Yes, it’s happened to all of us. You get to the point of closing a deal right then and there and you ask them to make a decision like “would you like to do this or that…”

You’re making your sales life harder than it needs to be. Here is what I want you to do – make the decision for your prospect. Tell them, rather than ask them. There’s a tactful and smooth way to do this and it works. Rather than say, do you want to pay by check or corporate card? Say, “we will bill this to your corporate card and send the reciept over to your email – what are the card details?” Make the decisions for your prospect so they don’t have to. Believe me, you save them time as well as your own. The prospect prefers it this way as well. Less decisions, less hassle, less things to think about. 

Give it a try. Any situation that may require you to ask for a decision – change to you making the decision on behalf of the prospect to handle it right then and there. You will find that this speeds up the sales cycle and improves the overall close percentages not too mention reduces work and effort for you and the prospect.

You will use this method of making a deicison for your prospect this week and then post a comment on my blog to let me know how it went and I will look forward to hearing from you. (see that wasn’t so hard was it?)

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

Over the past few weeks I’ve been on a mission to put order into every single area of our company. Meaning, I am making it orderly, implementing systems etc. The magic of “order” is limitless. Each little area that we’ve put order into results in things magically getting better. In other words, we made our company more orderly in one area and found that it impacted our growth just that much for the week.

Look around your company and make a list. Find every single area that you can to put order in. Then, simply address them one by one.

Here are a few examples:

- Make all workspaces neat and tidy to improve production

- Make a revision to a contract to ensure it reads correctly

- Address some old “need to get done’s” and do them

- Implement a new checklist to help make a process more efficient and swift

- Get rid of a redundant task or function that causes extra work

These are but a few areas. Just start listing out all of the areas that you want to make orderly and then do so. You will be completely blown away at how this will impact you sales, growth, expansion, morale and the list goes on. It’s complete magic.

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

 

 

It’s easy to get caught up looking off into the distant future and at the overall goal of what you are trying to attain but the actual way to attain your goal is by breaking it down into a series of small sub-goals that ultimately attain the overall goal.

I think a lot of people have trouble with this and get beat up trying to attain a goal that never seems to come to fruition. Here is how to attain a goal:

1. Write down the overall vision that you want to attain. Make it crystal clear so you have the goal clearly defined.

2. Work out the sequence of actions that would possibly be needed to attain the goal. In other words, what do you have to do to attain it. List every possible step or action related to the goal.

3. Take the first step or action and break it down into executable, doable targets.

4. Execute the first step and targets.

Then keep repeating step 1 to 4 over and over with all of your goal targets. The planning of goals and the working out of how to attain the goal itself is important. Once this is done, just focus on execution of the small sub-goals within the overall goal.

As an example, I run a lot and I have an overall goal that I am going after for sure but I focus on the sub-goals and then smaller sub-goals within those sub-goals. I get up everyday and go for a run with a goal in mind but even while running, I am only really focused on the next step in front of me. I am looking to accomplish one concrete block step after the other concrete block step. I don’t stare at the distance that I am running toward. I don’t think about the overall fitness goal either. I win goal after goal which are the small steps right in front of me and then by focusing on those, I end up attaining the overall goal for that day of the distance I want to go. This then is one sub-goal executed that aligns with the overall goal of a fitness target.

Does that make sense? It’s the breaking down of a goal into bit sized chunks that are doable, executable targets that is actually how to attain a goal. Then focusing on the small targets and getting them done. These then will lead to actual attainment of the overall goal. Work out the goal. Work out the planning. Work out the sub-goals. Work out the sub-goal targets. Execute daily.

Here is a great video by Nike that I thought appropriate

- Robert Cornish

CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group

 

 

Decision seems to be a relatively misunderstood word. In business, people talk about decisions, the decision-maker etc but rarely truly understand the power of decisions and the priority they take in getting anything done. See, many people try to have all the facts, knowledge and info lined up prior to making a decision and more specifically – SO they can make a decision. It doesn’t work like that. It works like this – you have to look at what you want to do and then completely and utterly decide on what you will do, the outcome etc. Make a decision that is unwavering and fully committed. Then you work toward the decision taking actions in order to execute what you decided on. That is how it works and that will give you the cleanest and exact result of your decision. Decide, then actions to execute the decision. Don’t waffle and think and come up with options after options and ho-hum and maybe this, maybe that – no – look at what you want, make a decision and take actions toward executing your decision to make it happen. It’s that simple. So focus on clear, crisp decisions and taking actions that attain your decisions. – Robert Cornish
CEO, Richter10.2 Media Group