May, 2007

Two weeks ago I determined that I want a new, smaller truck. I need a truck because of my hobbies, but I want a smaller truck because of gas prices. I went to the dealership and in about 15 minutes I had my truck picked out. I gave the sales rep my bottom line price - $325 per month. He told me that if we do business, he could meet that price. I called him about an hour later and said I was ready. The price came back to $367. Yup... he wanted a lot more. And he didn't even see it as a problem that I was already quoted almost $50 less. Idiot. I then called two other dealerships. This time I didn't tell them where I wanted to be but that if they could give me their best price for the truck and it fit my budget, I would buy before the end of the week. They never called me back. It is awful hard to show value in your product if the customer experience that you are fostering is that of complication and deceit. I guess I'll wait a year and try again. Sale lost.

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Corey Smith is the Vice President of Innovation at Fisher’s Document Systems where he maintains a blog on business and technology.

Over the past several years I’ve received a bunch of little gifts from recruiters, clients and suppliers. Some of them I’ve really appreciated and others have struck me as nothing more than really cheap logo carriers. Is anyone really flattered when they receive a Bic pen with a company’s name on it? Does this simple gesture really improve brand awareness or inspire someone to purchase from you? My guess is that it doesn’t. In fact, it may do just the opposite. But let’s assume you’re lucky and it does work, do you really want a client that has chosen your company based on the free plastic soda bottle opener you gave them? Of all the things I’ve received over the years the item I appreciated the most was a little black Moleskine® book. It’s a nice notebook given to me by a good friend and vendor for the purpose of recording blog ideas. I’ve carried it around with me for several months and draw from its pages many of the topics I write about. It doesn’t have his company’s brand on it or a note from him on the front page. It was just a blank notebook. The thing is, I use it all the time and when I do, I think of my friend and his business. It’s a high quality gift that I’m not afraid to carry around with me. As a matter of fact, I take it to nearly every appointment with clients and prospective clients and I’ve told many people about my friend’s business and how cool I think the book is. I suppose he could have taken me to lunch or bought me a couple boxes of Bic pens for the same amount of money but I don’t think he could have given a more appropriate item. What are you giving your clients?

The famous law of large numbers can work for you, and it can work against you.  In sales it works for you when you visit or call upon hundreds of clients knowing in the end you will make the sale to a few of them.  It can also work for you in your job search by applying to dozens of jobs looking for one open door. 

The law can also work against you if you are not careful.  One example comes from my field of recruiting.  I regularly receive hundreds of emails every single day.  This gives me some perspective when viewing emails from candidates.   It is funny the tricks people use to hopefully make contact with someone that will give them a job.  (At this point I could list several of the tricks. .but I don’t want to receive anymore of these type of emails.) The sad thing here is that it becomes so easy to see right through the ploy when I receive 10 or more everyday that read almost the same thing.  It seems like someone out there has a blog where they post ideas for how to get through to a hiring manager and get that job.  You better be first using the idea. .because give it 10 minutes to spread and you are just one of a dozen using the idea. 

If you aren’t quick enough to be in the first few. .you may be a victim of the law of large numbers.

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Jeff Bettinger is the Senior Vice-President of Human Capital and Investment at masterthebusiness.com and a Senior Recruiter for an International Engineering and Construction Firm.

 

 

It takes a really good meeting to be better than no meeting at all.

Blake Snow writes: continue reading...

If you're going to schedule a meeting that lasts one hour and invite 10 people to attend then it's a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting. You are trading 10 hours of productivity for one hour of meeting time. And it's probably more like 15 hours since there are mental switching costs associated with stopping what you're doing, going somewhere else to do something else, and then resuming what you were doing before.