Remembering factoids…Say yes…
Remembering factoids…And just how many
It’s funny how we can learn something, master it and then somehow manage to forget it! And the less often they’re used, the worse the problem gets.
Take the steps for calculating detergent use, or just the math behind how many ounces of detergent are needed to create a .25% concentration in an 18-gallon wash tank … or how to calculate the capacity of a tank (or sink) based on its dimensions, or how many cubic inches (it’s 231) a gallon of water displaces.
Ditto, the range of normal freshwater feedback rates (it’s about 1.25 to 3.0 GPM), or even how many PPM’s of hardness equals a one grain (It’s 17). Then there’s more technical minutiae like does that concentration increase as the wash tank temp increases, or does it decrease? (It decreases).
But there are a few that we’re especially prone to forget like the critical difference between calculating percent mark-up and percent gross margin. That one can be really problematic to your pocketbook if you propose a deal to a distributor to handle your line at a X% gross margin when you meant to say mark up.
Perhaps the reason for those lapses has to do with the really broad range of facts that we must have in our heads to do our jobs every day. Given that range, it’s not surprising that we have to occasionally consult a written source or just ask a buddy.
Say yes …To earning loyalty
Are you doing anything today to cement the loyalty of your best customers? If your reply is anything but a solid “yes”, that’s the wrong answer. But the truth is that is most of us wouldn’t deliver that one-word reply.
Instead we’d offer some vague meandering comment on service, cost or quality. But those are just the bare essentials – versus the stuff that really tie customers to us for the long haul. So, what are some of those?
The long and short of it: Delivering added value. That means delivering outcomes that the buyer recognizes as directly helping his or her interests. If it’s a restaurant, it might mean things that the buyer sees as helping repeat sales. If it’s a nursing facility, it might mean a level of cleanliness that pleases both the patients and (especially) their families. In a hospitality account, it might mean sheets and terry that are fresh smelling and bright, resulting in happier guests.
But (and it’s the big one) unless we actively market those added benefits they probably won’t register in the minds of our customers. And that means we need to find ways to explain how what we’re doing is delivering those extras. Simply stated we have to sell what we’re doing as a daily part of our services.
And if we do that, we all can reply absolutely “yes” with no hesitation.
Next up: Digging into a few of these.