I’m just back from my first trip to Ireland and what a trip it was. It’s possible that my boyfriend still hasn’t recovered from the crazy person I became on a few of those Irish back country roads:) The Irish summer weather, which included rain every day, was surprisingly enjoyable. The castles, the pubs, incredibly charming towns, an art festival and seeing U2 in Dublin are just a few of the reasons that I know I’ll be heading back soon.

You Can Rent the Car without Actually Having the Car

Remember that Jerry Seinfeld episode when Jerry reserved a rental car only to discover when reaching his destination that they had no car to rent? That’s this story, but at least the rental car employees in Jerry’s story were honest about the problem…they ran out of cars.

When we first arrived in Dublin we were rested and excited to get going with our journey. Thrifty Car Rental changed all that. We had reserved our car and after grabbing luggage, we got in line to check in. Only a few people ahead of us, so we thought “how long could it be?” Believe me, way to long! It seems that some of Thrifty’s employees were more on a mission to sell their insurance policies than they were to get people the rental cars they reserved. We finally get through that part of the process and we are whisked offsite to where you actually pick up the car. We thought…cool, we’re on our way. Um…an hour later, we finally got our car. What should have taken minutes was 2 hours long in the making.

How Thrifty is Your Service?

There are several definitions of “thrifty” on the Webster’s website. I happen to like, “thriving, prosperous, or successful”. I just have to wonder, how thriving, prosperous or successful Thrifty Car Rental is going to be if they can’t manage their fleet and reservations systems any better than what I experienced. Even the return was a major hassle. And DO NOT get me started on the GPS that we paid for but couldn’t use because their equipment was faulty. Two hours of waiting for a rental car and when we finally get one, we get in the car and drive away only to discover that the GPS is dead. The thought of going back to Thrifty was so painful that we just went on.

Have You Defined the Experience?

We live in a world that is driven by the customer experience. If you haven’t noticed…buyers have choices. They rule. Frankly, they always did. The difference now is that they can access information, recommendations and referrals like never before. It doesn’t matter what product or service you sell, if you don’t create a strategy that defines what you want the experience to be, you may well end up fumbling the ball. Thrifty didn’t just fumble, they kept digging a deeper hole with every contact we had with them. They’ve defined the experience all right, but I’m betting it’s not actually what they had in mind.

Boy, do I ever love the internet! The wealth of truly interesting information is amazing. Just when I needed a little inspiration for a blog post, along comes Jennifer Leggio over at ZD Net who writes a great blog called Social Business. Over the last few months, I have learned quite a bit from Jennifer about social media and well…business.

Today, her post touched a nerve for me! Who isn’t sick of spam? Yes, that’s a trick question…all of us are I’m sure, and like Jennifer I admit that I peruse my spam folder and marvel at some of the crazy headlines that are used to draw people in. Crazier still are the people who actually believe in so many of the “get rich quick” schemes that are promised. Do you really think that if you spend $49 you will become a millionaire in 90 days? You might wish it to be so, but wishing gets you nowhere…that’s just not how it works.

When it comes to marketing ourselves in the online world, I admit that I can be quite a zealot about the approach I believe is required to be viewed as credible, authentic and ethical when building business online. The old adage that people buy from people that they know, like and trust is as true today as it ever was AND even more so online.

It is interesting to watch the lengths people will go to in defense of their position if you challenge them on their sales/marketing approach. Case in point – in my Business Coaching LinkedIn group a question was posed about whether or not when people hire a coach they realize they are at the heart of the problem. Sounded intriguing. I checked it out.The individual who kicked off the discussion had some good introductory comments and then included a link to a video that they had created about their beliefs. (Disclosure…I hate that…it’s a signal to me that a sell job is impending). Still, I clicked on the link and watched. Not bad stuff. What I thought was interesting is that the first 1.5 minutes was about the topic and the rest of the video promoted the guy and his services. When challenged (another guy in the group gave him grief) he accused the guy of judging and went on to justify his position. When I weighed in and said that while his message and intent were good, the fact that he promoted himself and his services for half the clip created a perception that he wasn’t being totally transparent. You can guess what happened next…he totally justified what he did. I wanted to SCREAM – dude, listen up. You pushed your agenda and you know it, but it wasn’t worth the time. People either get it or they don’t. Many don’t!

Back to Jennifer’s post…really good read and supports what I’m talking about here. Thanks, Jennifer – you rock!

Sales is a lot like acting and dancing. That’s been my experience anyway. Flexibility, an open mind, great listening skills and a willingness to totally let go of your agenda are key. It is so important to flex and adjust your behavior and communication style with each person you meet, as if you were moving about the ballroom dancing with one partner after another. It is all about appreciating diversity and being willing to flex to meet the needs of different styles.

So what does a dance clip have to do with all of this? Well, sales is darn tough sometimes and requires people who can totally self motivate themselves. And that is not always easy folks! Center Stage is a terrific story of a young lady who is told that she “wasn’t good enough” according to their traditional ballerina rules, but then she goes on to set the stage on fire in a non-traditional production.

Morale of the story? There is a rock star in all of us! Our heroine totally demonstrates that dance can take many forms…as does the sales process.

For me, I think that sales is all about creating a relationship with potential buyers. A relationship that is all about wanting to “give more than you receive”…help people solve their problems and they will want to work with you. Remember, your rewards will come later. You must spend the time to build a reputation that says you are about integrity – that you can be trusted to truly help people to solve their business problems.

I say release your inner rock star. Be inspired by the video and remind yourself that how you face each sales situation is really inspired from within. It doesn’t matter what the external world says…it’s about what you know INSIDE yourself to be true. So dance…and sing…and have fun…know that you deliver great value in your service, stick with it, and ignore the criticisms of others. When you do that – you will achieve more than anyone thought was possible, maybe even you more than you thought possible!

Discussion about how to “build relationships” in the online world and what’s acceptable in terms of “how to sell your stuff” seems to be on the rise lately. That’s to be expected I suppose, especially when you see some fairly obvious multi-level marketing tactics being displayed. It is a quandary I guess, isn’t it?

The whole idea of using social media/social networking from a sales point of view is to build relationships that lead to sales. Done right, I totally believe using social media helps you to better qualify leads and shrink the sales process. That’s all good and helps you to build your business. But notice that I said “done right”. What a conundrum. If you “sell from the podium” you risk trashing your brand. And if you don’t, what’s the point of being online if you can’t convert your activity into sales?

Good questions. I don’t know if I have the “right” answers…I just have my perspective.

In over 25 years of professional selling, I can honestly say that blatant self promotion has never been in vogue. Ever. Done in the online space, it’s worse.

What leads to people to…

• Ask questions that they then answer by talking about how great they are? We are not fooled!
• Answer questions and not actually contribute to the dialog, but just yak, yak, yak about themselves and their products?
• Provide answers to questions that are clearly a push to their affiliate site? At least be honest about what you are doing.  Are you really that desperate?
• Pretend they are trying to provide value, but then they manage to “sneak in” their own stuff. Please – do you think we can’t tell?
• Not even answer the question at all, but instead sell their product instead. For example, in a recent LinkedIn group the question was “we are evaluating Achieve Global. Have you used their programs and what do you think?” This wasn’t a request for people to “pitch” their competitive product, but out of the first 5 responses – 4 did exactly that. Disgraceful!

I don’t know. Is it really that tough to just want to be in service to others knowing that you’ll get your just desserts at some other point? My belief is in the “do unto others” model…I don’t pollute the dialog with my sales pitch…maybe you could refrain from yours.

Over at Count5, CEO Eric Blumthal has quite a sense of humor, as well as a terrific product for reinforcing change in sales behavior. Their Q OnDemand software is a unique communications tool that makes more people remember more information more quickly. Q lets you convert relevant information into small, bite-sized chunks, push it to front line employees on a recurring schedule and track who consumed it and who understands it. This patent-pending process rapidly improves alignment with new initiatives, strategy and messaging.

Now for a little fun…although I’ve actually had one or two sales managers in my career who actually thought that this was coaching people:)