Revenue Journal®

Strip away all the blather about image and branding and positioning and market share and guerilla marketing and relationship marketing, and on and on, and you have this basic fact: it's all about someone buying something. Period. It's time we stopped obsessing about how we "sell" and start obsessing about how our customers buy...and how we can help them.

Here's a great example of a buying process. The person doing the buying lives here on our island. Roger Marshall is an entrepreneur, boat designer, author, columnist, editor, and publisher. Anyway, Roger and I got to chatting recently about buying experiences. Shortly afterwards, he sent me an email about his recent attempt to buy a camera.

I'll let Roger tell his story:

I went to Newport to buy a Canon Digital EOS Camera yesterday ($999) and visited Ritz camera in Newport. The salesman was polite and attentive. I tried both the EOS and the XT and settled on the EOS because it was bigger and I have big hands. I said I would buy the camera.

When it came to producing one for me to purchase, all he had was a body-only package, not the body and lens kit that his records said he had. He asked that we move to another counter.
When we moved, he repacked the demonstrator model and brought it to me.

I asked if it was the demonstrator. He said it was, and that it had been on the shelf for a couple of months. I asked for a discount, because this was his demo camera and I had no way of knowing if the camera had been dropped or knocked around. In lieu of a discount, I suggested that he could throw in a memory card.

He refused.

I left.

Roger's story has a happy ending, but let's focus on this lost sale for a moment.

Roger's request was a reasonable one. So one lesson we can take from this: If the customer is standing there, making a reasonable request, with money in hand, don't say no.

Instead, find a way to say yes.

I can't tell you how many times I've had sellers say, "We can't do that," when we both know perfectly well that they could do that. Instead, people cling to their regular way of doing things. They sell what they want to sell, the way they want to sell it, instead of helping people to buy what they want to buy, the way they want to buy it. Seems crazy, but it happens every day. It is more the norm than the exception.

Now to the happy ending of Roger's story.

I went online and found the camera.

While online, I remembered that I had purchased a portable computer from PCMall seven months ago, so I visited their website.

I should add that buying the computer from PCMall was a pleasant experience. I needed it for an overseas trip that I was going on the next day; it arrived on time, as promised, before I left for Europe.

After I purchased the computer from PCMall, I had received an email from Mohammed Abdul Kaliq, thanking me for the purchase.

I assumed this was routine, and thought no more about it until I went to PCMall for the camera. Sure enough, they had the camera I was looking for.

When I saw they had it in stock, I remembered Mohammed's email. I found it, and sent an email to him. Within hour he emailed back that the camera was in stock. He called ten minutes later. He was polite, went through the camera's features, etc., even though it was obvious that he was a computer guy more than a camera guy.

He quoted me a fabulous price--about half of the Ritz price, including a memory card. Obviously, I bought the camera. I was told it would be delivered via FedEx within 24 hours. (It was.) I also got a message saying that the camera was on its way.

Needless to say I am impressed as hell with PCMall and will go back there again for future purchases. In my opinion, it is this type of service that puts a company way out in front of the competition. It was obvious that Mohammed had looked up my records with PCMall before he called. That he set up a price that was better than the local store was an added bonus and one that made it worth buying online.

All of us selling something can learn a lot from Mohammed and PCMall.

1) Mohammed sent a thank-you note when Roger bought his computer. That's good. Even better: Roger was able to find that email later, using the subject line. (The subject line was "PC/MacMall account: Please do not discard this email.")

This is one of those essential details that makes it easy for customers to buy more from you. Always show the company name first in the subject line. That way, when someone wants to find that email among the thousands of old emails in their inbox, they only have to click on the subject line column to arrange their emails alphabetically, then scroll down to your company
name. Everything you've sent them will appear in one place. If you use some other subject line, such as "Confirmation of your purchase," potential buyers won't persevere until they find you. They will simply give up. Your competitor will make the sale.

2) In addition to being easy to find, the email contained contact info for Mohammed, and an offer for a discount off of future purchases.

3) Because of Mohammed's actions the first time, Roger had a good feeling about PCMall, to the point where he decided to check if they had his camera after his bad experience at Ritz Camera. He wanted to give PCMall his business, even though he wasn't sure they sold his
camera.

4) Mohammed not only answered Roger's email in less than an hour, but he had looked up Roger's records before he responded.

5) He also called, within ten minutes. Why not? How many sellers omit this step - assuming an email is sufficient? Hasn't the customer just made it clear that he's trying to spend his money...now? Why not call him to make sure his concerns are expressed and satisfied?

6) Mohammed called after the camera was sent to follow up again. As Roger says, "It's all part of the excellent service I have experienced with PC/Mac Mall. I hear the same thing from other people who have dealt with this company."

These actions are so basic. They're also boring, and they require careful attention to detail, which is why so few companies carry them out. It's so much more fun to work on a big campaign than it is to sweat over details like making sure that every sale comes with a thank you email and/or a call saying "your camera is on its way."

Today's market battles are not being won by sweeping, grandiose campaigns. They're being won with attention to detail, organizationaldiscipline, common courtesy, and database-driven customer contact and follow-up systems.