2. The Errors
As a promotional products distributor and a creator of marketing collateral, our company Innovative Marketing, is basically involved in printing which means there are a hundred zillion ways things can go wrong. We’re very fortunate that the number of errors we actually encounter is very, very small (knock on wood!).
I’ll bet the dozen or so errors we’ve encountered in the 30 + years we’ve been in business can be attributed about 90% to faulty proofreading (usually the clients!).
However, we would rather have our client’s complaint to overcome then to have them go away angry and never know why we lost the account. When someone tells you about a mistake you've made, it means they value your business relationship and you better care enough to do something about it.
Recently we had an expedited order to a local university. On time delivery for a special event was the most important factor. While complaining about the poor quality of the imprint, the client said they could overlook it because we delivered on time. They reluctantly used the product because it was better to have it to give out at the event, then nothing.
This account is too important and prestigious to leave hanging like that so I let my supplier know of the displeasure and he suggested a win-win idea that was going to relieve my anxiety, get him off the hook and really make my client shine. It ended up costing me a few dollars because the supplier greatly reduced his production and material charges and I was able to do a very neat imprinted first aid kit which was unexpected and very well received.
The Lesson: This gave me a great opportunity to put another idea in front of my client that they are enjoying and will probably order again for themselves. Plus I gained additional client loyalty and a new sense of respect from them to allow me to make suggestions rather than just be an order taker. Furthermore, the relationship between my supplier and I has been enhanced. What could have been the “last order syndrome” (THE LEMON) turned out to be a closer relationship with more mutual respect between the three of us (THE LEMONADE).
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Life's Lemons are for Lemonade
Business sucks. The recession is killing me and as hard as I wish, I'm coming up with negative after negative and then when something does start to look like it is going to be better, pow, a misstep or the shortfalls and a blown opportunity.
So how do I go about turning those lemons into lemonade?
In the last 30 to 40 days, I've experienced a number of deal killing situations and thought that revealing them here and going over how I overcame them might be helpful to followers of this blog.
1. The Delay Game - I might hate this more than anything else. One of my biggest clients (and absolutely the easiest to deal with) does an annual award banquet where the top 100 employees from its 8,000 nationwide staff are given gifts and awards. Guess who the go to promotional/incentive awards distributor is that they use year after year to provide these gifts and awards. Did you guess Innovative Marketing?
Usually the event is held in January to thank the staff for the great past year. Well 2008 wasn't all that great so the event was cancelled. Then it was rescheduled for March and then cancelled again. April was looking promising so it was tentatively rescheduled for May and finally held in July!
Besides staying in touch month after month, I tried to be creative in a way that would allow the client to keep the event while reducing costs for them without affecting my margins. It took a lot of shopping and cajoling with suppliers to get them to go along with me to make this a win-win for everyone. It worked out. Factories received orders for about 15 pre cent less dollars than expected, the client got to have its award event with great cost savings and highly valued gifts and awards and I saved lost revenue from the first quarter and am booking it into the third quarter.
All through this delay, I kept dropping new ideas for awards and gifts that would achieve the "pat-on-the-back" the company dearly wanted to give its staff. I realized the expense might be one of the obstacles that was getting in the way so I continued sending ideas over that were sometimes clever but it turned out unacceptable. I tried sending new catalogues and samples not knowing if the event was going to be held ever again, but believing it would eventually - probably in a future year.
The Lessons for me was the delay became:
a) Relationship building never ends, no matter what comes you have to keep building and earning that relationship.
b) A Learning experience is always right around the corner. I learned about newer technology ideas that I found useful for other clients and upgraded my knowledge about useful ideas.
c) Service is King and saving clients money is important.
Also, while I was waiting for this delay to end, I earned word of mouth referrals from this client and others who starting talking about the creative and "great stuff," I was producing.
Tomorrow I'm going to write about the second Lemon I recently turned into Lemonade - "The Errors."
So how do I go about turning those lemons into lemonade?
In the last 30 to 40 days, I've experienced a number of deal killing situations and thought that revealing them here and going over how I overcame them might be helpful to followers of this blog.
1. The Delay Game - I might hate this more than anything else. One of my biggest clients (and absolutely the easiest to deal with) does an annual award banquet where the top 100 employees from its 8,000 nationwide staff are given gifts and awards. Guess who the go to promotional/incentive awards distributor is that they use year after year to provide these gifts and awards. Did you guess Innovative Marketing?
Usually the event is held in January to thank the staff for the great past year. Well 2008 wasn't all that great so the event was cancelled. Then it was rescheduled for March and then cancelled again. April was looking promising so it was tentatively rescheduled for May and finally held in July!
Besides staying in touch month after month, I tried to be creative in a way that would allow the client to keep the event while reducing costs for them without affecting my margins. It took a lot of shopping and cajoling with suppliers to get them to go along with me to make this a win-win for everyone. It worked out. Factories received orders for about 15 pre cent less dollars than expected, the client got to have its award event with great cost savings and highly valued gifts and awards and I saved lost revenue from the first quarter and am booking it into the third quarter.
All through this delay, I kept dropping new ideas for awards and gifts that would achieve the "pat-on-the-back" the company dearly wanted to give its staff. I realized the expense might be one of the obstacles that was getting in the way so I continued sending ideas over that were sometimes clever but it turned out unacceptable. I tried sending new catalogues and samples not knowing if the event was going to be held ever again, but believing it would eventually - probably in a future year.
The Lessons for me was the delay became:
a) Relationship building never ends, no matter what comes you have to keep building and earning that relationship.
b) A Learning experience is always right around the corner. I learned about newer technology ideas that I found useful for other clients and upgraded my knowledge about useful ideas.
c) Service is King and saving clients money is important.
Also, while I was waiting for this delay to end, I earned word of mouth referrals from this client and others who starting talking about the creative and "great stuff," I was producing.
Tomorrow I'm going to write about the second Lemon I recently turned into Lemonade - "The Errors."
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