A good leader knows how difficult, in terms of money and time, it is to revive a dead customer or to get a new one out of a cold list, and a good leadership speaker and coach will tell you the value of a lifetime customer in terms of cash and referrals.
A true leader knows that the key to save money is to sell more to current clients, to the point that the salesperson becomes a part of the client’s team. Yep! This kind of positioning is priceless.
So, here we give you 5 tips to sell more to your current clients:
Slow down
Stop to evaluate and make sure you have done the best for your client and that you have earned the right to ask for referrals.
Get informed
Get as much information as possible about their referral style, if it is aggressive, fast-paced, optimistic, or detail oriented; and learn all you can about their business and their challenges.
Ask
Ask for referrals from key persons and from personal contacts in other departments.
Make a connection
Find a way to make an emotional connection with your client. Aim to make friends with them, and for this, forget about emails, voicemail, or direct mail.
You have to be there, it takes time and effort, but it is worth it.
People prefer to do business with friends, and true friends stick for life, even when the going gets tough.
Communicate regularly
Design a communication model to stay in touch regularly; one that builds top of mind awareness and that portrays you as much more than a salesperson.
Get in touch at least every 6 weeks, make it short, sweet, benefit driven, and if possible, with an emotional trigger. For example:
- Help them learn more
Create white papers, tip sheets, quick columns, or FAQ sheets to help your clients understand what you offer.
- Use a quote
Send an appropriate and inspiring quote to your clients and write a few words on it.
- Clip and send
Make it a habit to clip and send an article, cartoon or quote from any written source you read, or find something on the web that may help or interest your clients. Send it to them explaining why you thought of them when you read it.
- Books
Choose the right book for your client and write a note on the first page. Identify with a sticky note any special sections you find.
- Call them
It is always nice to receive a warm greeting call.
- Feel good things
Tell your clients about a success story related to your product or service that may inspire them.
And always remember to think of your customers as long time friends.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. Franco Graceffa is our contagious leader this week.
Those who have heard us speak probably know about our friend and his restaurant, Dolce Vita, in the North End of Boston, Ma. Franco is our hero for exemplifying the concept of CUEing, creating unforgettable experiences. He does it in spades and because of that his restaurant has been around for years while other ordinary restaurants just come and go. He knows the experience is not just the food and clean linen but creating a feeling, an emotional connection with his customers so they feel they belong, that they are family.
Franco is a leader. He knows that to be distinctive, to be unforgettable, to treat each guest with enthusiasm and joy for seeing them again. He hadn’t seen us for years yet……..A kiss on each cheek (for John too) and a warm “Ai, YAi, YAi (or something like that) you guys look like movie stars.”
Now how would that make YOU feel?
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader.
This week we want to acknowledge the Mayor of Fountain Hills. All our municipalities are dealing with adjusting to the ‘new normal’. Mayor Schlum has brought his ‘A’ game in collaboration to bring diverse and opinionated citizens to the table to negotiate the best solutions possible in navigating this rough patch in our economy. Contagious Leaders do not strive to be right, they focus on being effective and collaboration is a powerful tool in achieving that. Contagious Leaders listen and translate and encourage dialog. By studying the remedies that are suggested by all contributors a contagious leader knows (s)he can stand firm in the ultimate decision.
In business today with so much information being delivered in such a rapid manner, it is imperative that our leaders collaborate with others so they are well versed in all the options available. We are being forced to collaborate to accomplish this and Mayor Jay Schlum is a master.
Here’s is a brief video interview of Mayor Jay Schlum. You can see that his charisma and leadership is immediately apparent.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Steve Chandler.
“Have a mentor. Be a mentor” is what we live by and Steve Chandler was one of our first and continues to be an important mentor to us.
Steve has written more than 20 books and pretty much they all speak to the power of changing one’s perspective. Contagious leaders know that by changing their perspective they change their life! That’s just how the brain works.
We are all run by our perceptions. When we change how we see things then we change our story.
In Steve’s book, the Story of You, we immerse ourselves in ways to strip away the made-up limitations we believe about ourselves. In one of his first books Reinventing Yourself he brings to life our choice to live our lives as an “owner” or a “victim” of circumstances. Powerful stuff.
Stuff that true leaders are made of. Stuff that Steve Chandler is made of.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Dori Wittrig.
Our Contagious Leader of the week is Dori Wittrig owner of Sonoran Lifestyle Real Estate and a person who knows how to seize opportunity!
Dori had the unexpected good fortune to go out on her own. She had been in real estate with a substantial developers and was quite remarkable in how she packaged properties. Well, when she opened her real estate company in 1991, she packaged it in a robe of excellence and crowned it with the intention of cultivating an attitude of possibility in everything they created.
In the same spirit, when Real estate hit a rocky road, especially in Arizona, she saw the possibility of showcasing foreclosed properties in a big way. Today, the Sonoran Lifestyle over-the-top executive limo bus escorts eager buyers to preview a lineup of foreclosed properties. She saw the possibility and took action and now dominates the market!
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Jeff Eschliman.
Jeff Eschliman, Director of Construction for Maracay Homes in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been a student of Contagious Leadership since 2005. He recently reached out and asked me to connect with him on LinkedIn. I agreed, mentioning in a return message that I was looking forward to getting to know him better. He took this as a green light and sent me the following email through LinkedIn; “I’d love to buy you lunch some day and get more insights into Contagious Leadership. I just received the book (Creating Contagious Leadership) and I’m looking forward to diving in.”
That’s initiative!
During our lunch Jeff mentioned he has been practicing Recognize 5, our program for the Habit of Involved Recognition. We immediately invited him to do a video interview that will be shared with other Contagious Leader Coaching Club members.
Jeff Eschliman is a true Contagious Leader for a number of other reasons:
In an industry that has been hard hit by the economic challenges of recent years, Jeff works at staying positive
He continues to build his inventory of talents for the future by practicing the leadership habits he learns.
He faithfully practices Recognize 5 week in and week out without expecting accolades from the employees he works with or his superiors.
He has recent;y committed to deep and lasting changes in his personal life in the areas of fitness and exercise.
Yes, Jeff Eschliman is a true Contagious Leader, our Contagious Leader of the week. He is also our new friend.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on not one, but two contagious leaders, Curt Dunham and Peggy Fiandaca.
Curt Dunham and Peggy Fiandaca with Eppy (their sweet black and white baby) are our Contagious Leaders this week. They are masters at looking to each other’s strengths so they can be engaged in life in a big and exciting way. Behaviorally speaking, they couldn’t be more different. Kurt is steady, dependable and persistent with a fabulous attention to detail while Peggy is more of a Driver (aggressive competitive and results oriented) who is optimistic and loves to engage with others. They each ‘do their thing’ together and life is great.
Peggy and Curt continue to grow Partners for Strategic Action, Inc., their 17 year old planning firm by creatively pursuing challenging and innovative projects in the area of community sustainability and smart growth planning. They aggressively explore and establish collaborative relationships with visionary leaders addressing complex community development issues. Recently they also started Lawrence Dunham Vineyards in Cochise County, AZ focused on hand-crafted, estate-grown Rhone varietals.
Check out: www.lawrencedunhamvineyards.com Their philosophy of winemaking is to choose the right location, select the perfect vines, and meticulously manage the vineyard, letting nature do its magic with as little intervention as possible.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Frank Shankwitz.
Frank Shankwitz is a Prescott, Arizona resident and a 37 year veteran of the Arizona Highway Patrol. He’s a cop, always has been, probably always will be. He has seen bad things happen everyday for 37 years and you would think his outlook on life might be colored by that.
Not Frank Shankwitz!
This big man has an even bigger heart. That’s how he was able to make the world a better place for 230,000+ kids with life-threatening diseases since 1980.
Frank is a contagious leader. He saw a need, knew he could make wishes come true for kids if he found the right people to pull it together. And he did with a ‘can do’ attitude, a clear vision and uncompromising focus.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Yes, it is no longer enough to see someone’s resume to know if he or she is the best person for that meeting planner or assistant’s job.
Long gone are the days when people were rotated through a position to find a match, or when a competitor’s star player signed on for the big bucks only to fail miserably in meeting very high expectations.
A bad hire today implies such high costs, that the future of a company may very easily be in the hands of the person in charge of hiring the best candidate for the job.
Today, you have to look beyond the resume when hiring a leader, because normally that piece of paper is more filled with air than a hot air balloon.
Presently, you have to hire leaders by measuring their cultural compatibility. Instead of regarding only a certain set of skills, first you have to consider the person’s behavior and attitude towards the meeting planner’s environment.
In fact, there are 4 criteria that are crucial when hiring or promoting someone to a meeting planner or assistant’s job:
Attitude
It is not easy, but is a must, to identify a “can do” leadership attitude. This requires observation, open-ended scenario questions, and self-confidence demonstrations.
Behavior
This one also requires lots of observation and assessment, because it impacts everyone within the company.
You have to decide if you need an aggressive, results-oriented, fast-paced leader, or a stable, dependable, and caring one; this based on what the meeting planner or assistant’s job requires, not on your personal preference.
Competencies and cultural compatibility
Every job needs a given set of competencies. Define the competencies and behavioral attributes that best fit the position and see which candidates have them.
The candidate who best fits the competencies needed is the most compatible with your company.
Skills
You should hire a skilled meeting planner or assistant, but do not make his or her skills the decisive factor.
Most candidates will be able to learn most skills; however, not everyone is capable of changing or learning a new leadership attitude, behavior, or competency.
A leader should develop a system that measures a combination of these 4 criteria to find the right candidate.
This process is so vital that many companies hire a renowned leadership speaker and consultant to guide them through it as well as to help them design the right behavior, values and competency assessments, to conduct email and face-to-face interviews, and to thoroughly analyze resumes when hiring and promoting individuals, all of this in order to lower the chances of making a bad hire.
A good leader knows how difficult, in terms of money and time, it is to revive a dead customer or to get a new one out of a cold list, and a good leadership speaker and coach will tell you the value of a lifetime customer in terms of cash and referrals.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. Franco Graceffa is our contagious leader this week.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Steve Chandler.
Each week, we will be highlighting someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Dori Wittrig.
Jeff Eschliman, Director of Construction for Maracay Homes in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been a student of Contagious Leadership since 2005. He recently reached out and asked me to connect with him on LinkedIn. I agreed, mentioning in a return message that I was looking forward to getting to know him better. He took this as a green light and sent me the following email through LinkedIn; “I’d love to buy you lunch some day and get more insights into Contagious Leadership. I just received the book (Creating Contagious Leadership) and I’m looking forward to diving in.” 
Curt Dunham and Peggy Fiandaca with Eppy (their sweet black and white baby) are our Contagious Leaders this week. They are masters at looking to each other’s strengths so they can be engaged in life in a big and exciting way. Behaviorally speaking, they couldn’t be more different. Kurt is steady, dependable and persistent with a fabulous attention to detail while Peggy is more of a Driver (aggressive competitive and results oriented) who is optimistic and loves to engage with others. They each ‘do their thing’ together and life is great.
Frank Shankwitz is a Prescott, Arizona resident and a 37 year veteran of the Arizona Highway Patrol. He’s a cop, always has been, probably always will be. He has seen bad things happen everyday for 37 years and you would think his outlook on life might be colored by that.
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