Customer Care

Spring Cleaning For Small Business? Yes! In December!

December 12, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

Whether it’s a year where something we once knew as “normal” was part of our reality, or during an unprecedented and unimaginable year of a global pandemic, the abiding management question for all small business owners is always valid: “What’s the best use of my time right now?” And at no other time of the year are we more time-management challenged than in December.

The twelfth calendar month is the only one where two powerful imperatives converge against a hard stop, each demanding a full measure of your time, attention, and resources:

The perennial push to close out the sales year as strongly as possible, while
Simultaneously taking steps to set the business up for a fast and clean start when the New Year dawns on January 1.

Pardon the football metaphor, but in the marketplace game, your business plays all year, December is the two-minute drill of your fourth quarter. And in this tight transition period, that fierce competition for precious time and resources requires discipline and devotion to fundamentals.

Our grandmothers practiced the fundamentals of spring cleaning when the weather broke warm. In the marketplace, in order to kick off the New Year right, your spring cleaning should happen before then. There are many targets for a business’s December cleaning, but here are five important ones to get you started.[Continue Reading]

Mastering The Sales Discipline To Shut Up

September 21, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

Contrary to what you’ve heard, selling is the oldest profession, because “In the beginning” the serpent sold the apple to Eve. Everybody knows that. You might say she bought wholesale and then sold the apple retail to Adam. And as we now know, that was one expensive transaction.

A key characteristic that separates humans from the other animals identified in Genesis is ego. And while ego can be a beneficial motivator in selling professionally, in order to do that successfully, we must do something that’s in direct conflict with our ego — we have to let someone else talk more than us.

So, when you’re on a sales call – face-to-face with a prospect – what do you do? Do you unload the dump truck of stuff about products, pricing, etc. that your company installed in your head? If that’s your answer, your professional selling career is doomed. [Continue Reading]

The Golden Triplets Of Small Business Success

August 22, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

For most of the 20th century, Americans enjoyed what I call The Golden Age of Customer Service. Sadly, based on recent research, it appears we’re in the Plastic Age.

In a national customer satisfaction index, the average customer rating was less than 60%. Going six for 10 is pretty good – if you’re playing baseball. But any small business with that batting average is headed for the shower.

So how has such a level of unservice become a 21st-century norm? Because customers have become sensitized to what I call the Plastic Triplets: High volume/low price, impersonal e-business, and almost as impersonal face-to-face service.

For small businesses, the Plastic Triplets create both opportunity and danger. But seizing the former and avoiding the latter requires an understanding of two things: [Continue Reading]

In The Age Of The Customer, Relevance Trumps Competitiveness

July 14, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

For 10,000 years, customers refined their search for products and services down to a couple of semi-finalist sellers based almost entirely on the classic competitive value proposition: price, product, availability, service, etc. I’ve termed this period the Age of the Seller.

That was a nice trip down memory lane, wasn’t it?

The new prime differentiator today is no longer the competitive model, but rather a customer’s appraisal of how relevant a seller is to them, often before they even know if a seller is competitive. So, does this mean that sellers no longer have to be competitive?

Not at all – no one will pay you more for less. But consider three new marketplace truths: [Continue Reading]

Networking For Referrals: It Makes Business Easier And Life Simpler

April 20, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

The act and practice of networking – for business or any other endeavor – is one of the great intangibles in life. Networking can help you get into a college, a new job, a business prospect – you get the picture. But none of this happens until you actually meet people.

In the marketplace, the business reason for networking is to get referrals. Ivan Misner is the Founder of Business Network International (BNI), the world’s guru of networking, and the author of a wheelbarrow-full of books on the subject. He thinks people who don’t get enough referrals just don’t know how to ask for them. I agree. Ivan has an excellent suggestion to help with this, and it revolves around the person called the “center-of-influence,” or COI for short. The COI is the connection between you and the person you want/need to meet, and whom you likely met while networking.

Ivan says, “Don’t make your COI do all your work for you. Help them out by asking this question, ‘Who do you know who…?’ and then finish the sentence with a description that fits what you need: your business, industry, product, service, etc.” Here’s an example: John, let me ask you a question, who do you know who buys advertising? …truck tires? …owns apartments?

Here’s a concept I call, “Blasingame’s Entrée Spectrum.”[Continue Reading]

Closeness: The 21st Century Coin Of The Realm

March 23, 2023 by Jim Blasingame

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?
Just like me, they long to be, close to you.

If you’re old enough to have had at least a couple of anniversaries of your 39th birthday, you recognize these lyrics from the Roger Nichols/Paul Williams song by the brother/sister act, The Carpenters, which topped the charts in 1970.

When I write the theme song for small business, the title will be, “Close To You.” My reasoning is because, like the birds and the stars and the objects of their affection, there are many stakeholders in our small businesses that we hope will long to be close to us. Let’s take a look at three of the most important ones.[Continue Reading]