Autospeak-Straight Talk contains articles covering digital and social media marketing social communities and events marketing
Businesses Lose $41 Billion from Bad Customer Service: Here's what to Do
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(Posted on Feb 12, 2014 at 12:26PM )
This article by Noreen Seebacher  gives undeniable evidence for having  onsite social community. Bring your customers close and your employees closer and stay close to them and stop losing business to perceptions of bad customer service or employee apathy.
There are so many ways to utilize onsite communities to benefit the customer and your company that cannot be duplicated elsewhere - that it is a one time cost effective addition that you need to think seriously about for 2014.
William Cosgrove
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There are so many ways to utilize onsite communities to benefit the customer and your company that cannot be duplicated elsewhere - that it is a one time cost effective addition that you need to think seriously about for 2014.
William Cosgrove
Â
Featured Guide: Web Content & Customer Experience Management Guide (Download a Sample)
The US is a nation of "serial switchers" — and that lack of loyalty is costing businesses an estimated $41billion a year, according to research from NewVoiceMedia, a cloud contact center vendor.
Blame it on bad customer service: 44 percent of customers leave because they feel unappreciated, fed up, frustrated and convinced no one really cares about their problems.
You can read more about the study here (registration required).Â
But you don't need to dig deep to understand that better customer service can have a big impact on a company's bottom line. So what should you do? For advice, CMSWire turned to customer experience expert Shep Hyken, a best-selling author, motivational speaker and Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations.
Just Amazing When you have a title like "Chief Amazement Officer," people listen. Or at least they should. Hyken works with companies and organizations that want to build better relationships and loyalty with both their customers and employees.
"Keeping customers long-term is key to the success of virtually every business, " Hyken said. The reason is simple: It's much more expensive for a business to attract new customers than to keep existing ones — anywhere from four to six times more, depending on which research you consult."
4 Essential Strategies So how can businesses build customer loyalty and get a customer to come back again and again?
Be better than average: A company doesn't have to "wow" its customers each and every time. It just has to be a little better than average, consistently. "Two basic things need to be in place before any customer service strategy can be executed. First, there has to be a clear vision of what it is about. Second you have to have good people who can execute on that vision. From there you communicate the vision, train to it, recognize the effort and celebrate the success," Hyken said.
Encourage every employee to act like an owner: Employees who care as much as the person who owns the company put customers first. " You can encourage and ask everyone to step up and act like an owner, but you have to support the behavior. Empower employees. Recognize them for their success. Use mistakes as learning opportunities," Hyken said.
Strive to create totally loyal customers: Even loyal customers may still buy from your competition. The ultimate loyal customer is a repeat customer that buys what you sell — only from you and not from your competition. "Loyalty is created over time, one interaction at a time. It is the predictable consistent experience that a customer receives that gives them the confidence to want to come back next time. So, loyalty can be broken down into smaller parts. It’s really about what you’re doing right now that will get the customer to come back next time. It’s about the next time, every time," he said.
Create a customer service culture: Treat your employees the way you want the customer treated, maybe even better. " Before you can be a customer focused organization, you must become employee focused. Leadership initially models the behavior, but then all employees must do their part as well. The 'Employee Golden Rule' is to treat employees the way you want the customer treated. That’s a lot different than the way you would like to be treated. To be the best place to buy from, you must be the best place to work," Hyken said.
Additional Tips
Know These Must Have Social Media Marketing Tools
The US is a nation of "serial switchers" — and that lack of loyalty is costing businesses an estimated $41billion a year, according to research from NewVoiceMedia, a cloud contact center vendor.
Blame it on bad customer service: 44 percent of customers leave because they feel unappreciated, fed up, frustrated and convinced no one really cares about their problems.
You can read more about the study here (registration required).Â
But you don't need to dig deep to understand that better customer service can have a big impact on a company's bottom line. So what should you do? For advice, CMSWire turned to customer experience expert Shep Hyken, a best-selling author, motivational speaker and Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations.
Just Amazing When you have a title like "Chief Amazement Officer," people listen. Or at least they should. Hyken works with companies and organizations that want to build better relationships and loyalty with both their customers and employees.
"Keeping customers long-term is key to the success of virtually every business, " Hyken said. The reason is simple: It's much more expensive for a business to attract new customers than to keep existing ones — anywhere from four to six times more, depending on which research you consult."
4 Essential Strategies So how can businesses build customer loyalty and get a customer to come back again and again?
Be better than average: A company doesn't have to "wow" its customers each and every time. It just has to be a little better than average, consistently. "Two basic things need to be in place before any customer service strategy can be executed. First, there has to be a clear vision of what it is about. Second you have to have good people who can execute on that vision. From there you communicate the vision, train to it, recognize the effort and celebrate the success," Hyken said.
Encourage every employee to act like an owner: Employees who care as much as the person who owns the company put customers first. " You can encourage and ask everyone to step up and act like an owner, but you have to support the behavior. Empower employees. Recognize them for their success. Use mistakes as learning opportunities," Hyken said.
Strive to create totally loyal customers: Even loyal customers may still buy from your competition. The ultimate loyal customer is a repeat customer that buys what you sell — only from you and not from your competition. "Loyalty is created over time, one interaction at a time. It is the predictable consistent experience that a customer receives that gives them the confidence to want to come back next time. So, loyalty can be broken down into smaller parts. It’s really about what you’re doing right now that will get the customer to come back next time. It’s about the next time, every time," he said.
Create a customer service culture: Treat your employees the way you want the customer treated, maybe even better. " Before you can be a customer focused organization, you must become employee focused. Leadership initially models the behavior, but then all employees must do their part as well. The 'Employee Golden Rule' is to treat employees the way you want the customer treated. That’s a lot different than the way you would like to be treated. To be the best place to buy from, you must be the best place to work," Hyken said.
Additional Tips
- Pay attention to details: Little things can make a big impact.
- Analyze compliments as well as complaints: Don't just learn from your mistakes. Learn from positive experiences, too.
- Get social: Use social media to send value added messages, develop community and monitor what people are saying about you.
- Be consistent: You generate trust among your customers by delivering consistent service experiences.
- Keep your customer service people-focused: Customers should want to do business with you because of you and your employees.
- Sample your own customer service: See what it's like to be on the receiving end of the service you provide, through first-hand interaction.
Know These Must Have Social Media Marketing Tools
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Listen and learn is what we all must do in today’s customer centric marketplace both through both social media channels and direct communication. But if we think about it listening, the central part of communication, is an art form that for many is not something that is done well or worse- not at all.Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process. The most successful people all have one trait in common-They are good listeners.
Listening affects how we interact with and understand our colleagues, employees, customers; friends and family- virtually every aspect of our lives. So it is a subject worth exploring and studying and being conscious of.
"Listening is key to all effective communication, without the ability to listen effectively messages are easily misunderstood – communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated." (skillsyouneed.com)
Good listening skills also have benefits in our personal and professional lives:
"A greater number of friends and social networks, improved self-esteem and confidence, higher grades at school and in academic work and even better health and general well-being. Studies have shown that, whereas speaking raises blood pressure, listening brings it down."Â (skillsyouneed.com)
Today there are programs that listen to what people are talking about, thinking about and it informs us of what people are saying about us and what is important to them to give us ideas about how to micro market to these consumers to win their business.
But we must also program ourselves to truly listen to our customers whether it be knowing how to better nurture a lead online as well as customers and clients offline in our everyday professional lives.
The following video featuring Julian Treasure highlights 5 steps on how to listen better to understand our world around us to enrich us personally as well as professionally.
LISTEN & LEARN-Make a difference in your life and it will make a difference in others
William Cosgrove
The first part of this discussion covers online product reviews and the second part touches on a subject that we don’t hear much about but is an important topic that by its very nature is controversial but never the less must be discussed  and certainly one that I and probably many of you have strong feelings about.In the past if you criticized a person or business while talking with friends and colleagues, it went “no further than who was within ear shot of you.
Now, if you post a comment or do a bad review your comments are available across the online digital spectrum for millions of people to read.
The first part of this discussion concerns lawsuits regarding online reviews and comments which have become more and more common. Many of these lawsuits are often referred to as Slapp Lawsuits (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation)
Slapp lawsuits refer to meritless defamation suits filed by businesses or government officials against citizens who speak out against them. The plaintiffs are not necessarily expecting to succeed and most do not but rather are intended to intimidate critics who are inclined to back down when faced with the prospect of a long, expensive court battle.
Jeremy Gin, CEO of SiteJabber a review site for online businesses stated that these types of lawsuits are dangerous because they interfere with free speech and lessen the value that online reviews provide to consumers when they are searching for service providers or businesses. His fear is that such lawsuits would lead to fewer authentic customer reviews thereby providing less value to consumers.Â
If you plan to post reviews online, Gin offers three tips to make sure your reviews don't result in a lawsuit -- or, at least, a lawsuit that you'll lose.
1.      Tell the truth. "If you tell the truth and you're honest with your experience, you should not be held liable" said Gin.
2.      Write to help other consumers. Gin suggests that you write your review to help other customers avoid the same fate rather than posting an angry diatribe against the company.
3.      Cool off before you start typing. Finally, just like you should have a cooling off period before sending an angry email at work, walk around for 15 minutes and cool off before posting your review to make sure you don't let your anger cloud the facts surrounding your problem.
He goes on to say that if you're a business there are better ways to handle negative online complaints. Obviously, responding to the criticism online won't remove it, but for businesses that do care about their customers responses the response may be perceived as genuine and legitimate. And filing for a lawsuit to silence a critical review? Well, that can most definitely backfire. In fact, it generally results in more negative exposure.
The second part of this discussion is that aside from online product reviews there is the subject of just voicing ideas and opinions by posting comments and blogs. The big question here is if no law has been broken does anyone have the right to decide if your comment or blog is published just based on what they personally think is appropriate or not appropriate or should it be left up to the readers themselves to decide by just ignoring or leaving their personal comments to let their position be known. This question brings up what could be a very slippery slope with overtones of censorship a word that I am at total odds with.
 In your opinion, at what point has the line been crossed concerning 1. online reviews and 2. just voicing views and opinions and what should be done to resolve these situations?
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
"Would you do a little research to save tens of thousands of dollars on your marketing budget? Then take the time today to read this and research these relevant articles below and other relevant articles and you will discover the tremendous benefits and cost saving that an Onsite Social Community can provide."Social communities provide customers a central place in which to directly communicate with a business and gain valuable information about all of the businesses services and offerings. Social communities also provide an ongoing opportunity for the business to gain knowledge about the customer as an individual by listening to and addressing their constantly changing individual wants and needs.
Social Communities also provide an open forum in which customers can ask questions relevant to them and share their feelings with others on why they like doing business with your company. What better way to get to know a customer than genuinely listening to their wants and needs and providing the solutions and answers that concern “them†from one central place-your website.
As well as enjoying the rewards of being a customer of a business through special member discounts and drawings they get to know you as a business and you get to know them as a customer.
The process of buying a product is fleeting in terms of the length of time it takes. After the sale your relationship can last for years when it comes to servicing, communicating and establishing a positive relationship with that customer.
Don’t get drawn in by all the bell and whistle costly offerings that will never match the effectiveness and economy that having an onsite social community will provide.
The cost effectiveness of having that customer on your site as a community member is immeasurable when comparing it to the cost of campaigns to reach them. (See Know These Must Have Social Media Marketing Tools) Â Your communication also becomes welcomed and not intrusive to them.
Also, by having one central landing page for community members to provide helpful information from service to sales and relevant topics with the ability to ask questions that they have that concern them will turn your customers into brand ambassadors to provide invaluable marketing opportunities for you to increase you customer base.
Online social communities can also be combined with online events marketing to provide powerful and effective marketing campaigns that will stand out and which cannot be accomplished otherwise.
Analytics have provided more and more insight into online users behaviors and have started to provide more insight into target marketing to the individual.Â
The rapid advancement in technology as a whole promises to bring new and better ways to measure and market online much more efficiently. I for one am excited that as we move forward businesses will start embracing the advantages that current technology already offers.
Two of these advantages are that more businesses see the advantage of onsite communities to integrate current customers and employees into the company culture to better leverage these existing resources and integrating on and offline marketing into one cohesive marketing plan.
Would you do a little research to save tens of thousands of dollars on your marketing budget? Then take the time today to research these relevant articles below and other relevant articles and you will discover the tremendous benefits and cost saving that an Onsite Social Community can provide.
William Cosgrove   Â
Relevant Articles:
Activating your employees in social
What is “Social Influence Marketing†to You?
Are you Ignoring Your Best Brand Advocates?
Social Communities Can Redefine the Customer Experience
What is Social Casting?
The following article by Lisa Barone exemplifies Forrest Gump's famous saying “Simple is as simple doesâ€and in this sense is how you must construct your web pages to make them easy to navigate and your calls to action and vital information visible. Inundating people with all kinds of bells and whistles only distracts and confuses them.
Utility is the name of the game if you want to keep moving your customer through the funnel. Â Keep a constant eye on how your pages are working to make adjustments and remember this is all a constant work in progress
William Cosgrove
Utility is the name of the game if you want to keep moving your customer through the funnel. Â Keep a constant eye on how your pages are working to make adjustments and remember this is all a constant work in progress
William Cosgrove
6 Usability Mistakes That Kill Conversions
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It's happened to you before.
You arrived on a website confident in your mission. You needed to buy a vacuum cleaner! But once you got to Target.com or Amazon.com or wherever you planned to make your purchase, you become enraged.
- What category are vacuums in? Home? Electronics? Tools?
- How do you get through the site?
- Where do you click to see reviews?
- Are there color options?
- Is that a link in the corner?
- What if you want to search by price?
- Or by brand?
Bad usability kills otherwise pleasant website experiences and makes customers angry. Angry customers don't buy things.
User experience design is about creating the right path for your users and removing unnecessary roadblocks. Below are six common usability roadblocks killing your customers' experience and your bottom line.
1. You Aren't Keeping it Simple
The secret to creating a great user experience is to keep it simple. Don't put the navigation on the right side, if your audience expects it to be on the left. Don't make links green, when they should be blue. Don't design fairies to cascade down the page as a user reads it.
As a marketer or a business owner, there are plenty of avenues where you can be clever. The architecture and the design of your website really shouldn't be one of them.
Create a simple site by designing a logical page structure that is based on headers, lists, and paragraphs. Use a simple navigational structure.
Don't create Flash-based navigation, have crazy dropdowns, or insert elements that serve no function to the user. Have consistency of design and messaging throughout the site to help visitors understand where they are.
A great user experience is one where the visitor didn't notice there was supposed to be a struggle. It just worked.
2. You Tried to be Pretty, Not Useful
Your website has a single goal: to allow users to quickly and effectively accomplish their mission. If your website does this, it is successful. If it doesn't, it has failed.
It doesn't matter if your site has lots of well-written content, if the videos are engaging, or if you have more resources than your audience could possible read through; if it doesn't solve their problem, it's all for nothing.
Build a site that is useful by understanding your audience and their needs. You may choose to do that through:
- Keyword research
- Analyzing user queries
- Talking to your customer support team
- Tracking movements and behavior patterns
- Organizing focus groups
- Creating user personae
Or maybe you'll do a combination of those things. That's great. Identify your visitor's ultimate goal and then create a site that's sole purpose is to help them achieve that.
3. You Forgot Words (or Spelled Them Wrong)
I know all the experts have told you no one reads on the Internet and that your customers don't care about your content. But those people are wrong.
High-quality content helps to separate a good user experience from a poor one. Great content solves the pain points of your audience, it defines the benefits (not the features) of your product or service, it sparks emotion, and it excites a user to take an action.
High-quality content doesn't contain jargon or misspellings, come from sketchy sources, or make people question whether you're serious about your website.
4. You Give Too Many Options
There is no pain quite like arriving at your local diner when you're already starving. You're handed that menu and suddenly you can order nearly anything. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Soup. Salads. It's all on the table, leaving you feeling completely unable to make a decision.
Too many choices is a problem that paralyzes. Instead of finding what we need, we start wondering if this is the best we can do.
We second guess. We overanalyze. We become anxious and frustrated.
Avoid this by guiding your customers into the correct course of action by limiting the choices offered. Your homepage doesn't have to feature every product in your arsenal, maybe just your three best sellers. If a customer likes those, he or she can look further.
Less is more. Cater to what you're good at and remove distractions.
5. You Didn't Make the Action Obvious
If you want visitors to do something, make it obvious what you want them to do.
- If you want them to click on a link, tell them in the copy and make the link blue.
- If you want them to download a report, title the button "Download" and use bright colors to get their attention.
- If you want them to share a piece of content, ask and make it easy for them to do so.
Make sure you visitors know the purpose of the site and what it is you want them to do, regardless of where they land.
6. There's No Communication
Always give visitors a way to communicate with you and your team. Allow them to report bugs, to share their experience, and to tell you where they got lost.
Be proactive by reminding them to tell you these things and let them know how you want them to communicate. Do you want them to have the conversation on Twitter or via a contact form? Encourage users to support your site by supporting them.
Summary
You'll notice none of the recommendations above are particularly hard to implement. That's because good usability is based on best practices and creating an experience that intuitive and makes sense for a user.
How well is your site doing at covering the basics?
Why You've already missed the hottest marketing opportunity
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(Posted on Feb 6, 2014 at 11:59AM )
One must always be looking to innovate and try new things. The old saying that the early bird gets the worm holds true in most cases. Always be experimenting and measuring your marketing initiatives and remember some of the most lasting initiatives are right in front of you, you read about them and do nothing.Don’t miss out on opportunities because you want to play it safe and take a wait and see attitude. I am sure this is not what got you started or made you successful.  Some of the most cost effective and lasting initiatives are here now-take action!
Make the commitment this year to experiment and really look for and listen to fresh new ideas and just maybe you will find more success because success will most often not look for you.
William Cosgrove
Related articles:
Know These Must Have Social Media Marketing Tools
Introducing “AutoPhotoâ€
Article:
                Why you've already missed the hottest marketing opportunity
By Eric Wittlake, {grow} Contributing Columnist
Want to take advantage of today’s hot new marketing opportunity? Sorry, you’ve already missed the boat.
The best opportunity goes to the marketers who identify it well before it’s hot, not the ones who join at the frothy peak. You won’t see those initial eye-popping results today.
This trend has played out time and time again.
The first online banner ad, for AT&T, 44% click rate. Today’s average click rate for an ad the same size (468×60) rounds off to a nice even 0.0%! The only 44% you are likely to find in today’s banner discussion is the percentage of people with an ad blocker installed.
In 1978, Gary Thuerk sent the first unsolicited email to a whopping 400 people. The result? He successfully drove attendance to two in-person events and ultimately closed more than $10 million in sales. Today’s unsolicited marketing email to 400 people wouldn’t be expected to get a single webinar attendee!
Over the last 16 months, organic reach of brand posts on Facebook dropped from 26% to just 7.8%. That’s 70% shaved from the results of your Facebook efforts just for getting started 16 months later!
The story is the always the same. Twitter. Online video. Google AdWords. Blogging. Infographics. Native Ads. The marketers who get in early are the ones with the headline-making results.
Find Your OpportunitiesWhat can we learn from these and other early adopters who captured outsized returns?
- Innovate. AT&T took advantage of a brand new type of opportunity on HotWired. More recently, SAP was the first marketer to join the Forbes BrandVoice program and they are continuing to see some of the best results today.
- Know the trend setters and early adopters in your market. Just like Gary’s first email blast, Pinterest delivered astounding results for early adopters. Often the best opportunities are right in front of you—you just need to see them through a marketing lens.
- Be different. Did you already miss the best opportunity? Whatever you do, don’t just follow the masses! The unexpected nature of something completely new breaks through the filters we have all established for marketing. For a bit of inspiration in a stodgy B2B space, look up Maersk on Facebook. Or if you prefer, consider Red Bull’s marketing.
- In social media, marketers that started early had a head start building an engaged audience.
- In content marketing, early adopters learned how to connect with their audience effectively (and got a head start on SEO as well).
- In online advertising, early movers found the hidden gems. Working with a B2B advertising client about 10 years ago, we helped a niche site create their online ad offering. They became one of our best performing advertising partners for years.
By the time something is broadly recognized as the next great opportunity, it’s really just table stakes.
Here are some of the areas I’m watching with a marketing, not just product and marketplace, lens:
- The sharing economy.
- The Internet of things.
- The proliferation of inexpensive sensors.
- The brand new insights, segmentation, personalization and (most importantly) services this information and connectivity enables.
Where do you see potentially uncharted and untapped opportunity for today’s innovative marketers?
PhotoRep, is the first photo app of its kind developed by OneBigBroadcast’s innovative technology that augments reputation management, social awareness, search and solidifies your brand through positive feedback from satisfied customers.You no longer need to let these invaluable marketing opportunities slip by. Capture these happy moments as they happen and share them instantly on your customer satisfaction page and across your social channels.
The happiest time in the buyers experience is the day they take delivery of their new or preowned vehicle, product or service. We have made it easy to capture that moment with a photo and a text statement from the customer as to why they purchased from your business. There are also many times in Service where a customer is more than satisfied with a repair or the prompt and friendly service they received.
These pictures with customer texted statements from your satisfied customers will do more for your reputation and social awareness than anything that is available to you today and will also help with your search rankings. Customer testimonials also have the highest effectiveness rating for content marketing at 89%. Â Your employees will also benefit from sharing these treasured moments on their social channels.
Plus, you can capture those funny or treasured moments that occur during business hours and share them with your current and potential customers to show them that you are people to, transparent and customer centric.
PhotoRep also makes a great contest App.
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Take advantage of our introductory offer and get two first market products at no extra cost for the entire year that will give you the best ROI on anything you do this year.
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William Cosgrove
One Big Broadcast
These social experiments further cement the broad impact that social sites have and points out ways in which to utilize them to be the most effective. Undoubtedly Social channels must play a key role in any overall digital marketing plan in order to be effective in the online marketing space.
Any plan requires an investment and must be well thought out to produce the desired results to hit a company’s particular goals but there is a big advantage in that everything pointed out in this infographic by Neil Patel at Quick Sprout comes organically. This in itself can produce enormous saving over the long term if executed properly.
This also raises the argument for having an onsite community that when properly implemented can compliment any social initiative and combined, produce added benefits that cannot be achieved with any form of marketing.
William Cosgrove
Onebigbroadcast
Any plan requires an investment and must be well thought out to produce the desired results to hit a company’s particular goals but there is a big advantage in that everything pointed out in this infographic by Neil Patel at Quick Sprout comes organically. This in itself can produce enormous saving over the long term if executed properly.
This also raises the argument for having an onsite community that when properly implemented can compliment any social initiative and combined, produce added benefits that cannot be achieved with any form of marketing.
William Cosgrove
Onebigbroadcast
While I am travelling I thought that I would repost some of my old blogs that cover subjects that I have not touched on recently but ones that I feel strongly about.There have been a lot of postings and discussions over how best to improve a Sales Organizations performance. I personally have written many of them.
One thing that they all have in common is the need to have the right people in the right positions and the need for Leadership.
It all starts with Leadership because a true leader will posses all the qualities needed to do the things necessary to make a business successful. Because a true leader is always striving to hit that next level of success and surrounds himself with other leaders who have the same goals.
True leaders are the people who can leave the emotion out of the equation. All emotion stems from insecurity and has no place in running a business or in life in general for that matter. Insecurity gets in the way of truly clear thinking and objectiveness which are the benchmarks of a true Leader.
And this is where we hit the first wall to climb because in my relatively short tenure working for others I have not met many totally secure people who fit the true definition of a leader.
You can have all the systems in place that are designed for success but if you don’t have true leaders it won’t matter how well the system is designed it will not function properly.
One big reason that Businesses today lack the leadership needed to build a truly successful business is the lack of compensation. This for some reason lately has become a dirty word in some circles.
All this touchy feely talk about remembering someone’s birthday, giving extra time and pats on the back in lieu of compensation is just placating the powers that be. Anyone who talks like this is either doing it so as not to upset clients or have never been in the trenches in commission sales trying to make a living-or both.
All this is good stuff but if it isn’t backed up with proper pay for performance you will never attracted the true Leaders that can get the job done.
And other members of these circles are comprised Darryl, Darryl and Darryl (For those of you who remember) who are quarterly driven publicly owned companies that will do anything for a buck for Top Line and Bottom line growth. Doing more with less for the Bottom line and ethically questionable things to grow the Top Line. We have all seen it.
Unfortunately a lot of private companies have adopted the same kind of practices to their own peril which brings me to to “WHERE’S THE BEEFâ€
You can have all the proven systems in place that you want if you don’t pay for performance the true Leaders will find another home in the same or different Industry. Because the real talent in sales can perform anywhere.
For example, If you think about it and have studied or have been in the automotive industry long enough the forerunner of the 4 square, the track system, came along in the late seventies, early eighties.
This system owners thought the track system would give them the ability to hire any sales clerk off the street at lower compensation and get the same results as the real talent.
This didn’t last very long and I know because I was one of the salespeople who left when they lowered commissions. In retrospect, in the early eighties, I was making much more money as a Manager “then†than is being offered today. Add the rise in cost of living and you must question the motives.
Before I went back on my own in 2010 I was making more as a salesperson at one of the few companies that believe in "pay for performance"Â than most managers elsewhere without all the responsibility.
The Commission Sales Industry is a unique Industry in the fact that commissioned sales is one rung below being self-employed. There are a very limited number of truly talented professionals in management or sales who can make it happen consistently.
Give me a group of talented professionals with a pay plan that is going to draw them and I will take any system out there and make it seem like the best thing since sliced bread.
I recently wrote an article where I talked about compensation and even offered anyone interested in a "pay for performance" pay plan to e-mail me and I would gladly sent it to them.
I even gave an example of a Dealership who had this pay plan who consistently had the highest front and back end grosses in their region and district and were growing sales.
I received “0†requests.
You can argue all you want about systems and teamwork but in the end if you don’t get off that diet your on and put the “BEEF†on the menu to attract the real talent you are doomed to high turnover and mediocrity.
William Cosgrove
I write this article because I want to discuss the notion that bigger is better and bring up the idea that smaller can be beautiful and more often than not can produce much more effective results. I will be out of the country on a working vacation and wanted to leave you with thoughts on a subject I feel very strongly about.Â
I am also sharing these thoughts in hopes that it might encourage decision makers to remember what most likely made them successful and open their minds again and take a look at the same types of people they once were and may have forgotten.
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I talk to and meet so many incredibly talented innovative people who have the knowledge, talent and drive to do the best job because they are motivated more by the doing than the bottom line.
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 I know from my years of experience that one size fits all cookie cutter solutions are not the best answer. I do know that anyone who has had the acumen to make it happen by doing it themselves are the most creative and motivated resource you will find. Along with the creative, customer service from a smaller more nimble company is second to none and the ability to customize solutions to each individual’s needs by being able to take the time necessary to understand and address those needs.
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People who are self-challenged and who are simply driven to think out of the box to come up with creative solutions are the people who are going to make a difference. These are the people who really care about you because they know what it is like to run a business and not just sell a product or service.
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For almost 40 years I have subscribed to “small is beautiful†because it is the only way you can retain control- meaning being able to stay true to yourself, be able to focus on being creative and maintain the flexibility to serve your clients in the best ways possible.
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Is bigger really better? Think about it, share your thoughts or at the least remember what probably got to where you are today.
William Cosgrove
