PersuasiveConcepts.com

Selling To Their Wants, Not To Your Own

David Johnson — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:47:26 +0000

As salespeople there are really only two ways that you can make your customer feel. The first is to make them feel as if all you want is their money; the second, is that you truly do want to help them. You see, the two really only have one difference and that is mindset. Mindset, in today’s relationship-centric economy, is all that sets success apart from failure in sales. When your customer feels that all you want from them is a paycheck then the whole sales process becomes much harder. But, if you treat them with respect, patients, and spend your time trying to fill their needs and wants, the whole sales process becomes much easier. This is nothing new, in fact many people have spoken about this type of approach in the past, but much like video email, which has been around for the better part of 10 years, this type of sales approach has landed on the “wow this is a game changer, but I’ll get to it later” shelf. Sad isn’t it? I’m paraphrasing here but Zig Ziglar said it best when he said, if you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want. In other words, look at the products you sell and think of them as problem solvers. Take a look at most of the top performing salespeople at your dealership today, how do they treat their customers? Then, if you’ve been in the industry for 15 plus years ...

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Collaboration – Creating a Deeper level Of Social Engagement

David Johnson — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:07:36 +0000

I know what you’re thinking, “another post on engagement!” I know, I know, but in this post my aim isn’t to tell you the importance of it, rather I am going to lay out the 4 stages of social engagement and how you can use them to move people up the ladder of engagement, from consumptions to collaboration. Take a close look at the engagement level on your social networks, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Google + or others. Now, think about how many times you’ve thought to yourself, “How can I get more people to engage me?” One of the main reasons for this is because the vast majority of people are consumers. What that means is that they spend all their time consuming your content but do nothing to add to it. Not a like, a +1 a retweet and of course not a comment, nuh uh, no way. The problem with consumers is that they give you no reason, other than that they are following you, that they like the content you putt out. Of course that doesn’t mean that they don’t like it, in fact they could be influenced by your content, they just aren’t giving you any indication of it and they sure aren’t helping you to influence others. Consumers are level one in the social engagement hierarchy. As I mentioned in the first paragraph there are 4 of them, they are. Consumption Curation Creations Collaboration Important Note: While I’ll be giving you ways to ...

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Implementing A Massive ROE Process

David Johnson — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 22:49:04 +0000

Lately, I’ve been writing about the importance of building relationships and going above and beyond in your customer service with your clients. The first rule of creating word-of-mouth is to give people something to talk about. By giving your customers something positive to talk about they are more inclined to talk about you on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and other social networks. In fact, building relationships with your customer is so important that it’s more important that being able to track the ROI of it. I’ve written extensively on the topic and the responses have been more than overwhelming and I’ve been deeply honored with the outpouring I’ve received surrounding both: Forget About ROI, Start Thinking About ROE, and Why Relationships Matter And ROI Doesn’t A couple questions stood out to me, questions that were asked more than a few times, they were: How do you get your boss to forget about ROI and just jump headfirst into ROE? How do you massively implement a corporate wide ROE strategy? While both of those questions are great, I feel that each one deserves its own post, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. In this post I am going to answer number 2 above, how do you massively implement a corporate wide ROE strategy? In my next post I will answer the 1st (backwards I know, but that’s how I roll!). Get Your Thinking Straight First things first, you must have your head screwed on straight. By your head I ...

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How To Run Your Dealerships By The Book, Taking Action

David Johnson — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 09:19:40 +0000

It’s 4:38 am as a sit in the Charlotte, NC airport with the smell of cinnamon and icing wafting towards me from Cinabon. I see people moving slowly while they groggily walk to their gates, cussing themselves for having to catch a flight so early, cutting their much needed sleep short. I feel much the same way as I write this but am in a hurry to get back to my family and work. You see, I just spent the last two days at the Automotive Super Conference’s event How To Run Your Dealership By The Book and I feel inspired. Yes, I’m looking toward the loving embrace of my wife and children after 5 days away but I am also looking forward to action. Action, because having all the knowledge in the world is useless without it. Action, because it makes a difference. Action, because it’s your barrier to success… if you let it. While I was part of the team that spent the last year and a half putting this automotive conference together I took much more from it than I put in. Fellowship ran rampant as attendees stuck around hours after the last workshop, discussing application of what they learned, sharing what they knew. Knowledge is great, the pursuit of it even greater, but only if there is action taken on it. That can be the problem with conferences, that you feel compelled, while at the conference, to take action once you get back to the dealership ...

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The Golden Triangle Of Community Engagement

David Johnson — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:17:24 +0000

We hear it all the time. Social media is about engagement. Social media is about building trust, communication and letting people get to know the real you. That’s all fine and good but let’s face it, you’re an auto dealership and there isn’t that much about you that’s all that exciting. True, each one of us thinks we’re the best thing since sliced bread but let’s face it, nobody wants to be “friends” with a car dealership. Harsh words? Maybe, but I want to drive the point home that the way you are engaging now just isn’t working the way the so called gurus are telling you they should work. While I will be getting to the why in just a moment, better yet how you should really go about creating engagement, I first want to say that most of the info regarding social media isn’t going to work for the auto industry, not without modification anyway. The auto industry is a different animal, I don’t need to tell you that, and as such the way you go about engaging has to be different. Engagement, for it to be truly effective must be based around something the community is passionate about. Sure, you can talk about the weather but if you talk about a social object, that is a cause, a passion or a lifestyle then you go a whole lot further with creating the type of connection that will lead to more sales and fixed-ops business. Lets dive into ...

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3 Changes That Must Be Present In Order To Affect A More Social Culture

David Johnson — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:15:07 +0000

In 2012 we got a glimpse of what social marketing can really do for your business, but success was few and far between. Those that got it right are alien to those that didn’t. What was different? What makes one business a social success while others are left questioning the validity of new media altogether? The answer is social culture. I worked with dozens and dozens of businesses in 2012, some got it right, others not so much. The single biggest differentiating factor is the underlying culture of the business. I’ll say this right now, the typical business culture is NOT conducive to social success. What does that mean? It means that the way the vast majority of businesses are currently being ran won’t see any success in social media, that is if they don’t change their ways! If leadership isn’t willing to institute a social culture into the business, then no amount of tactics, training, money spent or strategy implemented will give them the kind of success that is truly possible through social marketing. How does a business go about implementing a social culture, great question! Creating a social culture boils down to three things: Change how you conduct business Change how you talk Change how you think I know that change is scary but the word economy is in a fundamental shift, a shift from a business-ran economy to a more customer-driven one. In order to shift along with the changes, you’re going to have to make a ...

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Learn To Love Your Negative Reviews, The Closed Feedback Loop

David Johnson — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:03:14 +0000

Yeah I said it. And you should! Negative reviews are those little pieces of gold that lets you know when you are doing something wrong. If you’re like most businesses you loath bad reviews, but without them, how do you ever plan on growing past the mistakes you’ve made? Good reviews are great! I’m not saying that you should strive for negative reviews, I’m just asking you to see them differently than you see them now. In a moment I’m going to give you some stats that will blow your mind, keep reading. Think about it, would you rather have a customer that had a bad experience, who never told you why, and stopped frequenting your business, or one that had a bad experience and told you why? I know your first inclination would be to say “I wish they just told me and not the whole world on my Google Places page David!” Trust me I get it, but a bad review can be a good thing for a number of different reasons but most importantly it shows you’re human. Being human means that you make mistakes and by making mistakes you have the ability to showoff your customer service skills. Studies have shown that people mistrust a business when a 100% of their reviews are positive, they instantly think there is some “gaming of the system” happening. In a moment I’m going to share with you a process for turning your negative reviews into something positive, I call ...

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The Three Control Mechanisms Of Maintaining Social Homeostasis

David Johnson — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 21:24:52 +0000

Homeostasis, David? Exactly what is that and what does that have to do with social marketing? The answer is, a lot actually, but first lets define it: The ability of a system or living organism to adjust its internal environment to maintain a stable equilibrium; such as the ability of warm-blooded animals to maintain a constant temperature; such a dynamic equilibrium or balance. Wiktionary I know, I know. What? Homeostasis is all about finding equilibrium. While it defines systems, I really want to look at how it works biologically. The reason? Because I want you to think of your social networking as a living and breathing entity. By looking at this way you will put more emphasis on reaching AND maintaining equilibrium. Social marketing is all about nurturing, building relationships and getting to know your customers and future customers. Social media is all about being human, about being who we are and connecting with people around it. One of the biggest reasons for social failure, after social success, is because equilibrium wasn’t maintained. What do I mean by that? I mean that too much emphasis was placed on one part of your strategy while too little was placed on it’s supporting players. Think of the different people that make up your business, the different departments and the different aspects of what makes your business tick. Are you employing social technologies for everybody, in every department, or are you using it only with marketing? Remember, homeostasis is key to the long ...

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Why Relationships Matter And ROI Doesn’t

David Johnson — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:52:11 +0000

We live in a society that puts the dollar above the customer. That is, corners are cut and customer service is subservient to getting “paid.” Don’t get me wrong, I like getting paid as much as the next person but too many times we question the return before we implement any kind of customer service process that influences both repeat business and word-of-mouth. Albert Einstein said it best when he said, “Everything that can be counted doesn’t necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.” I recently wrote a post called, Forget About ROI, Start Think About ROE. In that post I put forth the idea of thinking in terms of Return On Experience, in other words, the return you receive on the experience you give your customers. I had somebody tweet me saying that I was naive and misguided if I thought ROI wasn’t important. He missed the point. I’m not saying that ROI isn’t important, because it is. What I am saying is that being able to track an ROI isn’t important on some of the things that we know we should be doing. That takes me back to what Einstien said, “…everything that counts cannont necessarily be counted.” While there are ways to track a repeat customer and word-of-mouth, it’s not always straight forward. I don’t think anybody would argue that customer service goes a long way to determining if a particular customer is going to become a loyal customer or not. We’ve all been subject ...

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Forget About ROI, Start Thinking About ROE

David Johnson — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:48:16 +0000

Word-of-mouth is gold and social media is the vessel we use to promote it, but how exactly is it accomplished? As businesses we are always looking for ways to lower the cost of acquiring new customers. It’s simple economics, the lower the acquisition cost the more sales (and money) we make…simple right? Not exactly, as with most things it’s easier said than done but if you make it part of your daily customer/employee interaction to give your customers something positive to talk about you go a long way to influencing a higher rate of word-of-mouth, let’s call it your ROE or Return On Experience. In this post I’m going to throw out some radical ideas. Radical ideas that, at first, you will discount as being just that, radical. Then these ideas will start to work on you as you mull them over in your mind, more than likely you will talk with your spouse about them or maybe a co-worker asking yourself and them what if? What if you did try what I’m about to suggest, what would happen? Would it produce rapid word-of-mouth, would it reduce your cost per customer, would it create you more sales? The answer to all of those questions, of course, is yes but I understand that there will be a certain amount of skepticism involved but as you will soon find out, the logic is iron clad. Customer Experience I’ve brought this up before but I thought it important enough to bring it up ...

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