“THOU SHALT NOT STEAL” – Exodus 20:15

Best OffenseWhile headed to Memphis on a plane I read a shocking story from an in-flight magazine. Supposedly millions of dollars in goods and services are lost to theft every year in this country.

It’s estimated 1 out of every 52 shoppers takes something from the supermarket without paying for it.

Four million people are caught shoplifting every year, but for every one caught, 35 others get away with it; meaning there are over 140 million incidents of shoplifting every year in America!

One new hotel reported that in their first 10 months of operation, 38,000 spoons, 18,000 towels, 355 silver coffee pots, 1,500 silver finger bowls, and 100 Bibles were lost to thieves.

What’s really tragic is that only 10% of all shoplifters come from the low income ranks. 70% are middle class and 20% are actually wealthy.

I suppose that if everyone who was guilty of theft were arrested, there wouldn’t be enough cops to lock them up or jails to hold them all!

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Unlike most weekly Selling Point posts, today’s post was pulled from my (Doug’s) 2012 non-fiction book, Sell is NOT a Four Letter Word. If you make a living in sales, or if you manage sales people, or own a company that employs salespeople, you owe it to yourself to go to my website here, and see what this book is all about. If you look there, I am convinced you will want your own copy, and I will ship it FREE!

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With the funky economy you are forced to function in as a salesperson today, there seems to be more snipers than ever before trying to pick off your customers and make them their own. How is the best way to protect your good accounts from the competition?

A story relevant for this segment was told by Jesus in Luke 15. Quit squirming, I’m not trying to enroll you in Sunday school. I’ll just highlight two verses from this story that should make the point I want to get to.

“Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it?”

If a shepherd would be that concerned over only 1% of his flock, think how much of a threat losing a good account would be to your livelihood. I bring this up because typically 20% of your customers produce 80% of your revenue, so you might want to take a quick inventory and think about what these great accounts provide:

  • The first folks you offer new products and services to are your great accounts. They are typically more receptive and will evaluate things more honestly. This is an advantage you certainly wouldn’t want to lose.
  • Great accounts like those just mentioned are also the customers that are most profitable to you, and provide more revenue per mile for your effort.
  • Finally, these are the customers who usually provide insight for you into what is happening in the marketplace. This simply means that if you lose one of them, you will have fewer boots on the ground.

Since these customers are so valuable, you should identify some ways to inoculate them from the grasp of the competition. Here are several ideas that hopefully will keep you from having to leave the 99 at some point down the road:

Kindle deeper relationships – It is harder to take business away from a friend than a vendor. In order to create a relationship strong enough to withstand takeaway attempts, consider inviting clients to sporting events (daytime), purely social lunches, etc.

You might go a step further and strengthen relationships by inviting customers to visit your facility or conversely by asking your manager to join you for your next quality control check at your customer’s facility.

Keep things high and tightKeep things high and tight – Just like a mouse is curious, your competition will search for an entry point into your accounts, so by thinking outside the box you should be able to seal even the tiniest crack.

Price creep is something that can make you uncompetitive and vulnerable, so review your pricing, recheck your margins, and don’t be bashful if you need to reduce some items to avoid ending up in an awkward position later.

Also, think about things that may be unresolved in the account such as service issues, billing discrepancies, training promised but not yet delivered, etc. Don’t overlook anything that could be exploited by the dark side.

Knit customers more closely by bundling – Instead of selling by addition, move up to multiplication by packaging compatible items together and offering discounts as incentives. The more items you can bundle together for customers, the more difficult it will be for your competition to supplant you.

Key in on your value – I once worked for a B2B sales company that required all the Account Managers to conduct quality control visits quarterly with every customer. That really was a great idea, because it gave me a chance to toot my horn by identifying areas where I saved them money, thereby increasing the return on their investment.

This is a great way to earn a promotion from vendor to valuable partner, making it less likely that your customer will be attracted to someone else.

These ideas certainly won’t make you bulletproof, but they will definitely reduce the number of times you will have to go off into the wilderness looking for that lost sheep!

©2016 Robinson Training Solutions, LLC