Beating The Odds

No matter what business you’re in, you likely have competition from a discounter, national chain, huge franchise, or something along those lines.  Regardless of the competition or the industry we can all learn from those who survive and are thriving in the face of this competition.  This article is about one of those businesses who are beating the odds and what you can learn from them.

You might know that I own American Retail Supply (www.AmericanRetailSupply.com) We provide independent retailers with the things they need to run their stores – the bags they give you, displays, fixtures, marking equipment, point-of-sale computer system, etc.

Let me ask you a few questions. Think back 20 years, or even 10.  How many independent drug stores do you see now versus 20 years ago?  Pet stores?  Department Stores?  Office supply stores?  Hardware stores?  The list goes on and on, and the answer is the same:  NOT MANY.

In those 20 years, while the market has shrunk dramatically, our sales at American Retail Supply have grown more than 10 times.  But this month’s article is not about my business, it’s about one of our clients who has beaten the odds and huge competition from the “BIG GUYS” and not only survived, but thrived.

McLendon Hardware opened in 1926.  Today they have 7 stores and continue to grow while Home Depot and Lowes blanket the market area with new stores.  At the same time that the entry of these retail giants forced the biggest regional hardware chain into bankruptcy, McLendon’s continues to thrive and open new stores.

How do they do it?  How does McLendon’s Hardware continue to grow, survive, and thrive while the old leader in the market has gone bankrupt?  I interviewed the president of McLendon Hardware, Mike McLendon, a few years ago to find their secrets, and you can use these same secrets to thrive in your market place.  Throughout this article I’ll use italics to ask you questions about using the ideas previously discussed in your business.

Find a Niche and Fill It

McLendon’s niche hasn’t changed in 87 years… Their niche – SERVICE, SELECTION, and LOCATION.

McLendon says they see themselves as being more family oriented than their competition.  That makes sense coming from an 87 year-old family business.  McLendon says, “People come to a hardware store because they have a problem, and they want to be able to go home and fix the problem themselves.  And they want to be able to understand something about the problem.  That’s one of the reasons we stay in business.  People think we can help them with their problem, they get the solution, go home and fix it, and they’re happy.”

Seems kind of simple, right?  Give your niche what they want.  McLendon’s wide breadth of products and friendly, helpful staff, insures that customers go home with solutions that make them happy!

What makes you different?  As my mentor Dan Kennedy says, “Why should someone do business with you versus every other option in your business category?” 

I shop at McLendon’s Hardware.  Here are just a few examples of their selection and great service.

I had a chip in my bathroom sink that I wanted to repair.  I went to the national chain about a half mile from my house.  They had one color – white.  My sink is cream.  I drove 5 more miles to McLendon’s.  They had the exact color match and 50 other colors!

What do you offer that your clients can’t get from the competition?

I needed a Philips head screw driver bit for my power drill.  I went down to McLendon’s, and like always quickly found someone to help me.  She suggested a bit and then said, “Here, try this one also.  We just got them in.  You can have it for free.  Let me know what you think of it.” Are you kidding me?!?!

It really is the little things.  What can you do to surprise and delight your clients with the little things?

I traced a leak in my hot water tank to the flexible copper tubing water inlet hose.  I took the old hose to McLendon’s where again someone was ready to help me.  Instead of just handing me the hose and letting me go, the sales person took an extra 30 seconds to tell me exactly how to install the hose.  His information made the job much easier and the repair will last longer.

What information, education, expert advice can you give to you clients that your competition doesn’t?

I’ve learned my lesson.  I now drive right past the national chain and go a few more miles to McLendon every time.  For me, McLendon is right on the mark.  When I go to other hardware stores, because it’s convenient, I often leave discouraged.  When I go to McLendon’s I go home with the solution to my problem.  McLendon tells me he often hears customers saying, “I should have just come here in the first place.”

What can you do to create loyal customers who, even if more convenient, don’t even think about going somewhere else?

Finding Good People

With the national chains coming into town, finding and keeping god employees has become a bigger challenge.  The big guys can often afford to pay more.  But McLendon’s relies on great help to send customers home with solutions.  How do they do that?

McLendon’s attracts employees who want to be more than just a clerk.  Trades people are attracted to McLendon’s.  They have a tool guy who was a contractor and didn’t want to be a contractor anymore.  He likes his job, he likes the people, and he gets the regular hours he wanted.

A journeyman electrician hurt his back and couldn’t work as an electrician, so now he works at McLendon’s.

The new store manager at the Kent store started at McLendon’s when he was in high school.  McLendon finds that people may leave the company to go to work for a new competitor, but they often come back to McLendon’s.

What can you do to attract the kind of employees you want, and will give your customers Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service, without having to pay premium wages?

There’s more to this article, but you’re going to have to wait until part 2 of this series next month when I reveal the six core strategies McLendon’s is using to not only survive in the shadow of the retail giants, but thrive.  Stay tuned!

See how the Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service System can help you

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Find out more about the Make-You-Happy Management System

Temptations by Dan Kennedy

Dan Kennedy

Intro given by Keith Lee

Dan Kennedy is not only the leading expert in Marketing; he is the highest paid Copywriter in the world and is my personal mentor.  Everything Dan says to do, I do because I know what an impact it has had and will continue to have on my businesses.  If you are a small business owner looking to grow your business you’d be wrong to NOT listen to Dan.

Temptations by Dan Kennedy

Success and productivity are not the same things nor does maximum productivity necessarily translated to success. You might, for example, achieve a very high level of productivity at cold-calling prospecting and pushing through CEO’s doors in order to sell your services, but come to understand that you do not feel at all successful as a result; instead, perpetually stressed and anxious, demeaned by the ‘numbers game’ and the rejection; burnt-out…and come to realize you would have been better served devoting productive energy to building a marketing system that brought interested prospects to you.

As you set out to get a far stronger grip on your time, to enhance your performance, it’s important to be constantly assessing your reasons for doing so and the validity of the objectives you are pursuing and achieving.

Entrepreneurs tend to be under more constant assault than executives or others, so it is easier to lose grip on the thread that leads through the muddle to the prize. Prizes you don’t really want to get set up in front of you by others, and you race to get to them while losing the critical thinking that questions the appropriateness of the prize. This takes your time and invests it where it can’t get a desirable return. Entrepreneurs are, by conditioned habit, often by ingrained compulsion, perhaps even by nature Problem Solvers and Mountain Climbers. It’s what we do. But not every problem is one you need to solve or should care about solving. Not every mountain you are led to needs conquered by you.

My racehorses are incapable of critical thinking. They are bred and trained and conditioned nearly from birth to race. They are notable and fierce and automatic competitors. When I climb into the sulky and drive the horse to the track, get him moving behind the starting gate amongst the other horses, never, never, never does he stop and think—gee, maybe this is a race I don’t need to run. But you and I are capable of such critical thinking. We can reign ourselves in. As entrepreneurs, we are automatic competitors, automatic problem-solvers, automatic mountain climbers—but we are capable of overriding our automatic inclinations.

If you put a business problem or opportunity in front of a true entrepreneur, he automatically leaps upon it and begins solving it or capitalizing on it. He reacts as if a lion is thrown a hunk of raw, red meat. The lion will respond even if he has just had a big meal and is not hungry.

The entrepreneur will respond even if he has more on his plate than he can handle, no need to respond, no time to respond. In this way, entrepreneurs are dangerous to themselves.

You can reduce that danger with more disciplined time management. With entire weeks scheduled and scripted in advance, the new and unexpected must take a place in line, patiently wait, and instead of reacting impulsively, you can attend to it more calmly and thoughtfully. One of my principles is that nothing is ever as bad or as good as it initially appears. Before acting hastily based on first impressions, each new thing—problem or opportunity—must be carefully inspected.

Temptations by Dan Kennedy

Click here to find out what Dan Kennedy is giving away!

Nine Things More Important Than Money by Jim Rohn

*Note from Keith:

I have been a huge fan of Jim Rohn’s for years.  When I think about the heavy-hitters when it comes to business and life success Jim Rohn always comes to mind along with Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie, Brian Tracy, Earl Nightingale, and Napoleon Hill.  Whenever I read or listen to Jim I get extremely motivated and feel as though I can take on the world, and that’s a great feeling!

 

Nine Things More Important Than Money

Jim Rohn

When starting any enterprise or business, whether it’s full time or part time, we all know the value of having plenty of capital (money).  But I bet we both know or at least have heard of people who started with no capital who went on to make fortunes.  How, you may ask?

Well, I believe there are actually some things that are more valuable than capital that can lead to your entrepreneurial success.  Let me give you the list.

Time

time is more valuable than capital.  The time you set aside not to be wasted, not to be given away.  Time you set aside to be invested in an enterprise that bring value to the marketplace with the hope of making a profit.  Now we have capital time.

How valuable is time?  Time properly invested is worth a fortune.  Time wasted can be devastation.  Time invested can perform miracles, so you invest your time.

Desperation

I have a friend Lydia, whose first major investment in her new enterprise was desperation.  She said, “My kids are hungry, I gotta make this work.  If this doesn’t work, what will I do?”  So she invested $1 in her enterprise selling a product she believed in.  the $1 was to buy a few fliers so she could make a sale at retail, collect the money and then buy the product wholesale to deliver back to the customer.

My friend Bill Bailey went to Chicago as a teenager after he got out of high school.  And the first job he got was a night janitor.  Someone said, “Bill, why would you settle for night janitor?”  He said, “Malnutrition.”  You work at whatever you can possibly get when you get hungry.  You go to work somewhere – night janitor, it doesn’t matter where it is.  Years later, Bill is a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, rich and powerful and one of the great examples of life style that I know.  But his first job – night janitor.  Desperation can be a powerful incentive.  When you say – I must.

Determination

determination says I will.  First Lydia said, “I must find a customer.”  Desperation.  Second, she said, “I will find someone before this day is over.”  Sure enough, she found someone.  She said, “If it works once, it will work again.”  But then the next person said, “No.”  Now what must you invest?

Courage

Courage is more valuable than capital.  If you’ve only got $1 and a lot of courage, I’m telling you, you’ve got a good fortune ahead of you.  Courage in spite of the circumstances.  Humans can do the most incredible things no matter what happens.  Haven’t we heard those stories?  It’s humans.  You can’t sell humans short.  Courage in spite of, not because of, but in spite of.  Now once Lydia has made 3 or 4 sales and gotten going, here’s what now takes over.

Ambition

“Wow!  If I can sell 3, I can sell 33.  If I can sell 33, I can sell 103.”  Wow.  Lydia is no dazzled by her own dreams of the future.

Faith

now she begins to believe she’s got a good product.  This is probably a good company.  And she then starts to believe in herself.  Lydia, single mother, 2 kids, no job.  “My gosh, I’m going to pull it off!”  Her self-esteem starts to soar.  These are investments that are unmatched.  Money can’t touch it.  What if you had a million dollars and no faith?  You’d be poor.  You wouldn’t be rich.  Now here is the next one, the reason why she’s a millionaire today.

Ingenuity

Putting your brains to work.  Probably up until now, you’ve put about 1/10 of your brainpower to work.  What if you employed the other 9/10?   You can’t believe what can happen.  Huans can come up with the most intriguing things to do.  Ingenuity.  What’s ingenuity worth?  A fortune.  It is more valuable than money.  All you need is a $1 and plenty of ingenuity.  Figuring out a way to make it work, make it work, make it work.

Heart and Soul

what is a substitute for heart and soul?  It’s not money.  Money can’t buy heart and soul.  Heart and soul is more valuable than a million dollars.  A million dollars without heart and soul, you have no life.  You are ineffective.  But, heart and soul is like the unseen magic that moves people, moves people to buy, move people to make decisions, move people to act, moves people to respond.

Personality

You’ve just got to spruce up and sharpen up your own personality.  You’ve got plenty of personality.  Just get it developed to where it is effective every day, it’s effective no matter who you talk to – whether it’s a child or a business person – whether it’s a rich person or a poor person.  A unique personality that is at home anywhere.  My mentor Bill Bailey taught me, “You’ve got to learn to be just as comfortable, Mr. Rohn, whether it is in a little shack in Kentucky having a beer and watching the fights with Winfred, my old friend or in a Georgian mansion in Washington, DC as the Senator’s guest.”  Move with ease whether it is with the rich or whether it is with the poor.  And it makes no difference to you who is rich or who is poor.  A chance to have a unique relationship with whomever.  The kind of personality that’s comfortable.  The kind of personality that’s not bent out of shape.

And lastly, let’s not forget charisma and sophistication.  Charisma with a touch of humility.  This entire list is more valuable than money.  With one dollar and this list I just gave you, the world is yours.  It belongs to you, whatever piece of it you desire whatever development you wish for in your life.  I’ve given you the secret.  Capital.  The kind of capital that is more valuable than money and that can secure your future and fortune.  Remember that you lack not the resources.

Jim Rohn is considered to be America’s Foremost Business Philosopher. 

Customer Service Lessons From A Latte Stand

Customer Service can be challenging. But there is still no excuse for showing sincere appreciation to your customer each and every time they see you. In this video, I tell a story about a time I visited a coffee stand in Montana. As you will see, it didn’t turn out so well, and I learned a few valuable customer service lessons from that experience.

Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service is all about taking care of the customer and showing them sincere appreciation. When we don’t take the time to really show our customers that we care about them, and to make sure that we clearly communicate our sincere appreciation for them, we can often miss out on opportunities to keep our relationship with that customer. All it takes to lose a customer for life is to come across as if you don’t care, or in the case of the latte stand owner, to talk down to that customer. We should always keep in mind that the CUSTOMER IS THE BOSS, and treat them with respect and sincere gratitude.

You can find more customer service lessons like these in my FREE book: The Happy Customer Handbook. Just click the link and I’ll send you the book, and I’ll even pay the postage!

Take a moment before you interact with your next customer and ask yourself: “Am I ready to show this customer my appreciation through my smile, my greeting, my service, and most of all my attitude?” Just reminding yourself that the customer is the boss will help you get in the mindset of delivering exceptional customer service, and you’ll set yourself apart from the competition because of your exceptional attitude.

Remember, Only Happy Customers Come Back

Keith Lee

P.S Want to know more about Out Nordstrom Customer Service? Just click here.

How Saving 208 Dollars Can Cost You $250,000

By Keith Lee

Here’s a true customer dis-service story that happened to me a number of years ago.  This highlights the value of making sure each of your Team Members know how to take care of customers.  The airline’s name has been changed to Bungle Airline to protect the not-so-innocent.

The day after the big earthquake here in Seattle about 12 years ago, I had a trip planned with another person to the east coast.  It was an important trip that I didn’t want to cancel so I looked on the web and found that due to damage at the airport, my flight had been cancelled.

I called the airline to see if they could get me on another flight.  They couldn’t.  but, as I was on hold, I was also on the internet and found that I could fly America West (name not changed – their service throughout was great!) and make it to my meetings. 

I told the agent at Bungle that I was going to book on America West and keep the second part of my ticket open with Bungle to come home.  This last minute ticket on America West was much more expensive but it was important, so I made the trip anyhow.

I confirmed with the agent at Bungle that I would be able to get a credit on the first part of my ticket.  She offered to transfer me to someone who could do it right them, but I was in a hurry to book my other flight and get some things done before I left.  She assured me I could get the credit later.

The next night, while in my hotel room in Massachusetts, I called Bungle to get my credit for the cancelled flight.  Since I had not used the first part of my ticket the return reservation had been cancelled. 

I assured the agent that I was indeed in Massachusetts and that an agent the previous day had told me that I could use the return portion of the ticket and that I needed to go home on the flight that I was reserved on.  The agent would need to talk to her supervisor…

Ten minutes later we found that luckily I had the credit card that the flight was charged on so they could see that I had not fabricated this story.  Again, luckily there was room on the flight and yes, they would break the rules and accommodate me.  Not bad.  A bit of a hassle, but I’m going to get home!

I asked them about the credit on the unused cancelled flight – $208.  I was told, “That’s a nonrefundable ticket.”  Even though the flight never took off they told me it was nonrefundable!  You can imagine where it went from there.  I was told that the supervisor had already gone out of her way to get me on the return flight and that I should be grateful.  I was told they would gladly refund my entire unused ticket for the full price of $416 and I could then book a one-way back to Seattle for $1800!

I asked to talk to the supervisor.  I just as soon could have talked to a brick wall.  She pointed out that they could not control earthquakes, but seemed appalled when I told her I couldn’t either.

I asked to talk with her supervisor.  She was the top person there at 9pm eastern time.  When I asked for a supervisors’ name to talk to in the morning I was told, “Just talk to anyone.”

As I got ready to hand up I mentioned to this supervisor that I owned a company that took about 50 round trip flights a year and Bungle Airlines was probably not going to see any more of our business.  I was told, “Well, we can’t have special rules for everyone.”  I replied that I didn’t want anything special, just a refund on a flight that was cancelled by them!

To make a long story short, I decided not to call until I got back to Seattle.  When I called I decided to act like I had never talked to anyone about the refund.  I really didn’t want to get into a long drawn out discussion again.  I simply wanted a $208 refund on a flight that had been cancelled.

I called Bungle and told them my story.  Within two minutes I had my refund applied to my credit card.

What Customer Service Lessons Can We Learn From This?

  • Be sure your front line customer service people (heck, make sure EVERYONE is) are trained to truly take care of customers.  Review common problems and complaints and be sure your Team is trained to handle them quickly and efficiently.  Remember, Only Happy Clients Come Back!
  • Supervisors and managers must be able to think, act, and do.  Maybe Bungle Airlines couldn’t get the message to all of their customer service agents to take care of people whose flights were cancelled due to the earthquake (I haven’t got the foggiest idea why they couldn’t, but who knows?)  Regardless, if they couldn’t get the word to all the customer service agents at least the supervisors should have been trained to understand that the customers can’t control earthquakes, either, and that “nonrefundable” doesn’t apply to cancelled flights.
  • Be sure everyone in your company understands the “Lifetime Value” of a customer.  In this case, Bungle was looking at losing the opportunity to compete for at least $250,000 of business.  Our company takes about 50 round trip flights a year.  At the time this happened I planned to be around here for at least 20 more years.  I would have very likely told everyone here to use Bungle only as a last resort if I had not received my refund.  They would have missed out on the opportunity to get their share of at least $250,000 in airline travel over saving 208 dollars.  What is the Lifetime Value of your Customers?
  • Be sure everyone in your company knows that word-of-mouth can be your best advertising or your worst advertising.  The cumulative effect of word-of-mouth is absolutely amazing, and with social media as popular as it is, it costs too much to have poor customer service!  You have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Yelp, blogs… you name it, if you create a bad customer service experience you and everyone else on the interweb will hear about it!

 

Do your people know that a happy customer will tell 1-2 other people about their experience and your great service?  Do your people know that a dissatisfied customer tell an average of 16 people about your poor service?!?!  OUCH!

 

And what about word-of-mouth in this instance?  At the time when this story happened I was sending out my newsletter to 25,000 customers (this is through my main business, American Retail Supply).  If I had not received my refund I would have not changed Bungle’s name.  I would have told every one of you about their incredibly poor service.          

  • Check yourself out.  Do your policies, procedures, and practices allow your people to use their good judgment to take care of customers?  Do you put your customers through the wringer in order for them to get their request fulfilled, or do you empower your Team to make the best choice possible to make the customer happy?

 

Remember, Only Happy Customers Come Back!

How To Get Rich in Un-Rich Times

Dan Kennedy

A note from Keith:  Dan Kennedy is not only the leading expert in Marketing; he is the highest paid Copywriter in the world and is my personal mentor.  Everything Dan says to do, I do because I know what an impact it has had and will continue to have on my businesses.  If you are a small business owner looking to grow your business you’d be wrong to NOT listen to Dan.

How to Get Rich in Un-Rich Times
by Dan Kennedy

In the Renegade Millionaire System, I dispense this advice: #1: BE the Wizard, #2: BEWARE the Wizard. Wizards are very powerful, so it is better to be one than to be influenced by one.

Everybody welcomes the convincing Mystic. People so desperately wish to Believe. That there is a long lost, ancient or a revolutionary new Something: cure, elixir, formula for easy riches or happy relationships or better sex or children that mind or growing 12 foot high tomato plants; a gizmo that turns corn into fuel or tree bark into gold doubloons; an Answer Man, Seer, Keeper of Secrets. And in dark times, this desire intensifies. In dark times even kings subjugate themselves to the Mystics – which you know if you’ve studied history. People really don’t want rational explanations for how you do what you do, they prefer Believing that you possess Mystical Powers and Magical Secrets that you will use for their benefit. To underestimate the power of secrets and secret powers is to ignore how humanity has been manipulated, controlled and ruled since its beginnings.

 In these times, you can rise to greater heights of influence and power than at any other time, by turning up the wattage on your mysticism. In the dark, you glow. Doesn’t matter if you dispense investment advice or lawn care advice, are a dog whisperer or a presidential candidate, or a tax attorney or a mattress manufacturer – now, more than ever, is the time to speak of secret techniques and magic ingredients and unique abilities.

To offer absolute certainty in an uncertain world. To declare unique and profound importance.

I’m speaking now about how you present yourself to the world.

If you sell a particular kind of mattress, you must present it as THE – emphasis on key word: THE – first, best, only “magic,” based on top secret technology invented for NASA and Olympic athletes – that relieves all back pain, delivers 10,000 more REMs per night, lets cellular structure rejuvenate thus slowing aging, helps you lose weight while you sleep; is THE secret to eternal youth and vitality. It must be THE GREATEST discovery in medical science of this century. And you, as its spokesperson, must be the Grand Mystic of Sleep Science. You need an arsenal of Amazing Facts at your disposal. You need practiced language and Profound Statements. You must convincingly promise THE Cure. For whatever ails them, economically, emotionally, physically. To advance your education, I strongly suggest getting and reading the book CHARLATAN. It reads like a novel but is non-fiction. Not that you should be a charlatan; I presume you deliver legitimate value in whatever you sell or do. But that you should use the techniques of the master-charlatans of the ages. Nothing less will do.

When a group becomes lost and frightened in a dark cave, the man with the only flashlight automatically becomes their leader. Key word: only. It’s time to present yourself as the person with THE ONLY flashlight.

Learn more about Dan Kennedy and GKIC

Take Back Your True Power

We are delighted here at Keith Lee Business Systems to work with Lee Milteer, a productivity and human potential expert with whom I’ve had the privilege of knowing for many, many years. Members of my Live Your Bucket List NOW Insider Circle receive reports from Lee and her faculty, as well as a Celebrity Guest interview audio every month as part of their membership.

Lee has been a huge inspiration for me as well as thousands of other business professionals and entrepreneurs.

You can find out more about her at www.Milteer.com

Remember when you were a kid and you used to dream about a time that you would be in charge of your destiny and nothing could stop you from being exactly what you wanted to be?

Now as an adult, you have the authority you wished for as a child, but things aren’t going the way you had planned.  Does your life seem to be all work and no play? Do you feel uneasy about your future? Do you ever start to doubt yourself? Do you get stuck wanting to move ahead in life but aren’t sure if now is the right time, or you aren’t exactly sure how to proceed? Have you been waiting for the right time to do something and are now realizing there is never a perfect time?

Childhood Woes

From childhood, we’ve been taught to do what authority figures told us to do. We have been programmed that other people are smarter, wiser, and have more experience. We’ve been warned about the disastrous results that might happen if the rules aren’t followed. The bottom line is that we’ve been taught to give our power away and not trust our own judgment or truly believe in ourselves.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten your power to listen to the deepest part of yourself – your real needs, your desires, your gut instincts – and you’ve begun to make choices that are no longer satisfying. The good news is that your point of power is this minute in time. It’s the decisions you will make and act on from this day forward that will determine your destiny.

This month I am going to give you some new perspectives, motivation, and strategies for taking action so you can take back your true power and start Believing in Yourself and abilities again.

You Program YOUR Future

One of the first things you must do is start to be aware of how YOU are programming your future. How are you labeling yourself? Are you programming yourself to fail and allowing past habits and events rule your future?

The way you label yourself and think about yourself with yourself talk will determine how you make good decisions about critical issues in business.

We all have unproductive behaviors or habits that keep us from using our potential effectively. If your self-talk reinforces those unproductive behaviors or habits you are actually programming those unproductive behaviors to be more powerful and harder to get rid of in your life and self-image.

By Lee Milteer, Author, Speaker, Coach, Publisher, TV Personality
Milteer.com 

11 Customer Service Lessons From One Phone Call

One time, a few years ago, I called one of our very good clients who has a brick and mortar store, excellent mail order business, superb telemarketing organization, and a top notch website.  They don’t have a retail store in my area, so I usually order online or call them.

I order from them for a number of different reasons:

  1. They area a very good client of ours.
  2. Their products are superb.
  3. Their service is almost always at the Make-You-Happy level.
  4. But even the best service businesses fall short and that’s why we need to be consistent and persistent in reinforcing Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service in our business.

One of the areas that continually amazes me is how often people assume they know what you are going to ask and therefore don’t really listen to what you’re saying.  I had ordered top quality expensive wading boots for fly fishing in rivers.  When I got them they were too narrow.  I looked through their catalog and saw that the only boot they had in the catalog was available in wide widths was a lower price model.  Now, I’m not snobby, but my feet are old enough that I need the support and extra sole thickness.

I called the 800 number to ask if they had any higher quality boots in wide widths.  A very nice good customer service person told me that was the only boot that actually came in a wide width, but suggested that I call back in the morning and ask for a “boot product specialist” and see if one of the boots “ran” wider than the model I ordered.

I thought that was a great idea!  I buy New Balance tennis shoes for that reason.  I don’t need to get a “wide,” their shoes just run “wider.”

So I called back the next day and asked for a product specialist.  I told him that I had already found out that the only boot they carry in a wide was their inexpensive model and that the customer service person suggested I call back to see if any of the more expensive models “ran” wide and might work for me.

He said, “Let me check.”  It was quite a long while so I thought he was “checking” with someone else to see if any of their boots “ran” wider.  But then I heard him mumbling on the phone.  I found out that he was just reading from the catalog.

I told him I had already read the catalog and that I knew none of the other boots came in wide widths and ask again if he or anyone there knew of any brands “ran” wider.  He just went back to reading the catalog.  Finally, I just said, “Never mind,” and hung up.

I went to the local fly shop that is not very convenient for me to get to and found that they didn’t have any boots that came in wide widths either.  But they did have a great boot that ran wide.  I bought a $139.00 pair of boots.

And yes, you guessed it.  The company I called in the first place has the same boot.

The “product specialist” was very nice and polite and I’m sure he had customer service training.  The company’s customer service is consistently too good to think it just comes about without training.  There are at least 11 lessons to learn from this one call.

    1. Train your team to truly listen.  Pay particular attention to people in your organization who tend to answer questions from you and others before they listen to the entire question.  Pay particular attention to those who like to finish questions for others.  Truly listen, don’t assume that you know what someone is going to say.  You know what happens when you assume.  You make an ass out of u and me:

      ass-u-me.

    2. Monitor your customer service.  This seems almost obvious, but while it’s obvious, almost no one does it.  Whether you use secret shoppers, your own people secret shopping, or recordings, don’t ass-u-me that your people are doing what they’ve been trained to do.  And don’t ass-u-me that they do the same things when you or a manager are around to witness it firsthand.You surely can’t monitor every customer service interaction, but in this case, over time the business I called would certainly hear a similar customer service interaction and be able to address it in their training.
    3. Make sure your customers know what to do when they are not being served properly.  Be sure your customers know your exceptional customer service expectations.  They need to not only know your exceptional customer service expectations, they need to know what to do when they don’t get Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service.In as many ways as you can tell your customers what to do when they don’t get Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom, Make-You-Happy Customer Service.  Tell them when they are on hold on the phone.  Tell them in any communication that you send to them.  Tell them with signage.At American Retail Supply we tell customers to please let us know if we even let you down and if you’re still not happy call me, Keith Lee the owner of the company at 253-859-7310.If I have been told, “If we ever let you down, please call Bill at xxx-xxx-xxxx” I would have likely called Bill who would have found out that they do have a great brand that runs wider.  They would not have only thrilled me, they would have me writing an entirely different story about their Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service and I would have told you their name and I would have spread a huge amount of positive word-of-mouth advertising.
    4. Know your product.  I’m not going to harp on this too much because we are human and we can’t know everything.  But I do think that a “boot specialist” certainly should have known if any of hte brands “run” wide.  And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below.
    5. Know your Customers.  I am a very good customer for the company I called.  Good enough that they send me a hardback version of their master catalog that is about an inch-and-a-half thick.I certainly believe in giving every customer World Class, Exceptional Customer Service.  With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree.  Yes, the customer that buys a $200,000 a year from us does get super-duper Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service.  But you say, “How can they know that you’re a great customer?”  Have a great data base!  I’m going to be blunt here.  With the price of computers and software today, there is simply no excuse for not knowing who your great customers are and you are throwing money away by not marketing to and treating them differently and that certainly should not affect giving your other customers Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service.In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me.  What could he have done?  He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back.  He could have called his manufacturers and called me back.  He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide.  He could have done something.Should he have done those things for someone who buys $3.95 a year?  Maybe, maybe not.  But for one of his best, absolutely!
    6. Train people to know where to go to get answers.  I covered this a bit in #5.  There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen well enough to hear the question properly.  We have a lot of product at American Retail Supply.  Regardless of how much training we give our team there is absolutely no way our reps can know everything when we put them on the phones.  So we spend a lot of time in our training teaching them where they need to go to get the answers.  When they start we constantly remind our reps of the most important sentence to learn:  “I’m sorry, I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you by…” and then get back to them when you told them you would.
    7. Create loyal customers.  In this instance, one of my favorite places to shop let me down.  But that’s unusual.  Their service, products and delivery are usually superb and because they are, I’m loyal and I’ll continue to shop with them.
    8. You can learn multiple lessons from poor customer service in your business.  The normal response to bad customer service is to simply blame the person who delivered the poor service.  As you can see by the ten things we learned from this one phone call, you can learn a great deal from one instance in poor service and there are lots of things that could have been done so that this didn’t happen.  It’s not just the reps fault.
    9. If you truly believe in and practice Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service you will have multiple ways to catch and fix poor customer service.  When you implement Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service you have many ways to identify, catch, and fix service that is less than exceptional.  With Out-Nordstrom Nordstrom Customer Service you will have opportunities to recognize problems, fix them, or maybe not even have issues come up because of
      • Training
      • Monitoring
      • The customer contacting someone else
      • Product knowledge
      • Customer knowledge
      • Training your Team to know where to get answers.
    10. Three fingers pointing back at you.  I learned a lot of wonderful lessons from my mentor, Dick Thompson.  One of them is, “Remember, when you point your finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you.”  If customer service in your business is anything less than great you have one person to blame… yourself!  There are only a few reasons for poor, or great customer service and you are responsible for all of them.

Be sure to have your eyes and ears open for your own customer service stories and them lessons you can learn from such experiences!

-Keith Lee

Lessons Learned From Barbara Corcoran

In May of 2013, I was fortunate enough to listen to Barbara Corcoran’s keynote address at the GKIC SuperConference in Orlando.  Her story is absolutely fascinating and what she shared with us attendees really resonated with me.  She was a fabulous speaker, was truly authentic, and it was evident that when it came to business, she wrote her own rules.  A true Maverick, which I really appreciate!

During her keynote address she shared with us her Seven Lessons of Success, as told through her experience as an Entrepreneur.  These may be things we have all heard before, but it doesn’t hurt to be continuously reminded of them to help us as business owners and Entrepreneurs stay on our A-game!

Lesson 1: Enjoy the Getting There

Barbara talked about the day she would sell her business for a lot of money.  Like most business owners – certainly me, probably you – she dreamed of selling her business one day for a lot of money… and then she said, “To anyone in the audience dreaming about selling your business, let me just give you a word of caution, enjoy the getting there.  I thought the day I could go to the City Bank machine and see that I had $44,000,000 in my checking account after I sold my business would be the most amazing change in my life.  Well, let me tell you something, it’s so much more fun getting there than having it.  The best days of your life are in the action.  Nothing is ever as exciting as building your business”

WOW – That was powerful.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it also, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

Lesson 2: All Great Entrepreneurs are Great at Failing

Over the years, in her real estate business Barbara had about 7,000 real estate agents who worked for her.  She had agents earning $11,000,000 a year, while the average agent earned $43,000.  She asked herself, “What’s the difference?”

At first she thought it was connections – that wasn’t it.

She thought it was how hard they worked – Nope.

What she found out was that her great sales people were great at failing.  When they get hit they have the inability to feel sorry for themselves.

They were down for a short amount of time and then back at it.

Lesson 3: Perception Creates Reality

Long before Barbara was a Celebrity Real Estate Broker in New York City, in fact, before she could afford to advertise, she started sending out press releases about the New York real estate market.  She began to be quoted in the New York Times as real estate expert, Barbara Corcoran.

When Barbara heard that Madonna was pregnant, she wrote the Madonna Report about what
Madonna would be looking for now that she was pregnant.  She didn’t represent Madonna, but she was now referred to as, Celebrity Real Estate Broker, Barbara Corcoran.  When Richard Gere was looking to buy in New York, his people called Barbara.  Perception Had Created Reality.

Lesson 4: There are Only Two Types of People Who Work for You – Containers or Expanders, and You Need Both of Them

Containers are the organizers, the filer, the office manager, the operations manager, etc.  You need
Containers in your business, and you need them in the correct positions.

Expanders are those good at sales, creative and marketing.  You need Expanders, and you need them into the correct positions.

Put people in positions where they can creatively use their strengths.  Let them reach their personal and professional goals as well as the goals you’ve set for them as their employer in the best way they know how.

Lesson 5: Promote GOOD People

I’ll say it the way Barbara did.  Forget about ‘ass kissers.’  You don’t need ass kissers.  To find GOOD people ask co-workers in the company, “Who helps you?”

Now, I agree with Barbara’s first 5 lessons, but I have a real problem with her 6th lesson…

Lesson 6: There is No Such Thing as a Balanced Life for the Successful Business Owner

OK, I haven’t sold a business for $66,000,000.00 like Barbara so I can certainly accept that if you define success as selling your business for 66 million dollars there may be no such thing as balance.

Barbara didn’t start her family until she was 47 years old because she couldn’t imagine running a business and having a family.

YIKES!!!!!!!!

OK, again, maybe that’s true if you build a business worth 66 million dollars, but that doesn’t work so well for most business owners.  We’re not willing to put our life totally “on hold” to build our business.

I love what I do.  I love owning my business, but I also have a family life, and my outside of work life.  But… if you had asked me in 1992 if you could be a balanced business owner I would have agreed with Barbara because I was burnt out, and just flat tired from building my business and being the best father and husband I could.  I was running at 100 miles per hour and I had no time for my own physical, mental or spiritual life.

When I started developing my Make-You-Happy Management System in 1993, everything changed.  I had found a way to create that work-life balance that we all strive for but find so elusive when we become Entrepreneurs and business owners.  This literally changed my life, and I become a better husband, father, and business owner because of it (I’ll spare you the details here but you can learn more about this system at www.KeithLee.com).

Lesson 7: You Have the Right to be There

When Barbara became a “success” in New York she started attending industry events and to her surprise everyone at each event was a man.  They treated her like second class and she felt second class.

After accepting this for a while, she decided that she wasn’t going to accept it anymore and decided for herself that:

You Have The Right To Be There

So she decided she was going to change her thought process and start acting like she had the right to be there and before long it wasn’t an act anymore.

Always remember, you have the right to be a successful entrepreneur!  No apologies.  No regrets.