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It’s Not Who You Know

4/19/2011

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By Michael Kline, The Entreprenologist
Originally appeared

For as long as I can remember, I’ve heard the old adage “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. To some people, this is sage advice telling them to find and maintain business contacts. Others use the cliché phrase to explain away their frustration that in some unfair way, someone else with more contacts got the job, the promotion or the deal. Is it fair? Is it even true? Either way, what can you do about it?

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into relationships lately.  Sales people know that building relationships is important.  We know that if you have a good relationship with suppliers, you might get better deals; with a customer you make more sales, and so on. So if you don’t have a relationship where and when you need one, you need to build one as fast as possible. Since most people agree relationships are built on trust, if you can quickly build trust, you can more quickly build a relationship. This is not something you can fake, as most people have enough instinct to sense a trust-faker. If you suspect that someone is trying to manipulate you into a business relationship, trust your instincts. If based on integrity, the fastest route to trust is to first extend trust. Given the opportunity, most people will be trustworthy and will reciprocate. Next, make and keep promises. You might be thinking you need to build trust to get someone to buy from you and how can you keep a promise until they agree to buy from you?! It is not the Catch-22 you think. Make a simple, easy promise; to do some research, return a call, keep an appointment, get a quote, provide a sample, or deliver a service-style that meets your brand’s experiential promise. This is where the relationship begins; as astonishing as it sounds, if you can under-promise and over-deliver on the simplest and earliest contacts, you will often be ahead of even the most sophisticated competitors.

Keep in mind that promises aren’t always easily identified by you, but they are by others. Your advertising, your image, your logo, your reputation and your price levels all create expectations, or promises. Sometimes they are made outright and sometimes they are implied and sometimes they are imagined and perceived by others unbeknownst to you. Regardless how your contact came to have your promise, if you consistently deliver on those promised expectations, you will have a trust “savings account” that you be able to “spend” when needed on better deals, faster sales, forgiveness for future errors, preferred status and given the benefit of any doubt by your customers, suppliers, employees, partners, or investors.  We can evaluate ourselves (check the balance of our trust savings account) by asking what would happen to our business if an unthinkable disaster occurred. Are our standards beyond reproach? Does our community of stakeholders trust us enough to stand by us no matter what? This is how we check the balance in our “trust savings account”. We make small deposits and withdrawals from our trust savings constantly. Thankfully, the exact balance is only truly known when disaster strikes; we hope to never really need to know and never to become overdrawn. If your account is very small, any little error has the business effect of a larger disaster.

Businesses and the people who run them sometimes think they can “manage” their relationships through emotionless technique as if people were some sort of predictable software program. Following a disaster, the communication experts create press releases; the prettiest spokesperson delivers explanations and positive spin on anything they can. This seldom works. The best method and time to manage disaster is the same method and time to produce more and better relationships with all your contacts. The best way to build all your resources for good times and bad is through building – no, earning trust from the very beginning of the relationship. It’s not who you know, it’s how well they know you.

Last week, I witnessed a disaster beyond imagination at a small business. It involved the death of an infant at an in-home day care. I have never been so close to anything so sad and so personally tragic that the business owner could not even contemplate or comprehend that aside from the personal grief there was also a legal and financial aspect to the situation. Long before anything was known of the situation aside from the startling news feed “death at a day care - more at eleven”, long before to the licensing agencies and the local police concluded the death was the unavoidable result of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, while the local TV news teams were still scouring the neighborhood looking for anyone to say something controversial or negative about the child-care provider, the business’s fate had been sealed. Unanimous and unwavering support, confidence and absolute love poured out of every crack and crevice in the community. Even the parents of the deceased infant lobbied the licensing agency to make sure the day care remained open to continue caring for their older child who had also been entrusted to the center for two years. Every client not only remained loyal and supportive even before knowing the circumstances, but past clients heard the news and came to lend their support. I wonder how many larger day cares, public schools or even churches could garner such trust as this amazing woman who spent the last eighteen years selflessly serving her customers, nurturing their children and earning their trust, all to squeak out a month-to- month living.

This single mother, turned stay-at-home-mom, superhero-business-owner, school sports volunteer and part-time community college student could be charging thousands of dollars per day to advise fortune 500 companies on the basics of building client relationships. I’m glad she’s not because she’s doing more important work as she helps shape the minds of little humans. I teach business concepts, yet once again, I’ve learned priceless lessons from my baby sister, the superhero last week. I love you sis – you continue to motivate, impress and inspire me.

If you think you have too much sophistication, education, experience, age or wisdom to learn from the most humble person with a good heart, you may be missing out on the most valuable business lessons available; more importantly, you may be missing out on a richer, more fulfilling life.

Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.
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Promoting Business in Mud, er... Lilac Season

4/19/2011

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by Michael Kline, The Entreprenologist
Originally appeared in the Conway Daily Sun April 6, 2011

Case study – Imagine you were responsible for marketing a destination resort somewhere in the mountains. This imaginary place is beautiful every season of the year. Outdoor activities abound most of the year and indoor activities have proven very successful in attracting visitors as well. Today, the only really slow season is spring. Historically, three time frames were very slow for business – generally, in between skiing and hiking, waiting for foliage, and after foliage but before skiing. Why is there now only one slow season remaining, and how would you market it?

The first question I would ask is what has happened to cause the slow fall dates to get busy and why is spring still slow?  Years ago, some very community minded folks brought the Mud-bowl to town, scheduled soon after Labor Day - the traditional end of summer vacation.  At the same time, travel trends changed and people began to take several shorter vacations throughout the year instead of taking two weeks or more all at once.

Building on the more frequent weekend trips, more activities were created by locals, like the Bark in the Park, the Carroll Country Dog Show, Pow-Wow, and others. These days, it’s difficult to plan another event for a September weekend; it feels a lot like summer. I remember booking a group trip to Jackson for the first weekend in November. The hotel practically gave us the rooms to fill up during such a slow time. Retailers of course will tell you that the first two weeks of November now compete with, and sometimes beat sales for Thanksgiving weekend, thanks to the hard work and genius of the outlet malls and chamber of commerce marketing.  So if activities fill up September, and shopping and events fill up November, what could we do with spring?

First up, I suggest we lose the term Mud-season – if you were a butcher, you wouldn’t call your fresh-cut, grass fed, organic, shade-grown, free range, angus beef “dead cow” would you? Why do we call this beautiful time of new life, fresh beginnings and renewal – mud season?  Who named an entire season on the only negative aspect we can think of?  We don’t call ski-season “Freeze-to-death-and-slip-and-fall-on-your-butt-season”!  We don’t call foliage season “Everything-dies-and-become-ugly-season”!  The chamber has used the term “Bud to Blossom”, which I must admit, sounds better than mud-black fly season.

Spring is when everything becomes new and beautiful again. It’s a time for new life and new growth; which can be speaking of plant life, wildlife, or your own personal growth. Like the folks that came before them, community minded locals are busy promoting spring as a new time to enjoy life and to enjoy our valley. Throughout April, I’m offering a series of business skills seminars to help local businesses take advantage of the slow time to work on personal and professional growth opportunities.

This year, we’re calling May Kindness Month – sandwiched between Valley Pride Day, which is always the first Saturday in May when over 1,000 volunteers go out and clean up the entire valley and finish with a big celebration. This year, May ends with Kindness Weekend happening coinciding with Memorial Day weekend.  Kindness weekend will feature author and speaker Michael Chase, founder of The Kindness Center and a day of volunteers fanning throughout the valley committing random acts of kindness, followed by a rally back at Schouler Park. Memorial Day weekend is also the grand opening of Mount Cranmore as a year-round attraction, which is a big deal in my opinion. May also brings us Mother’s Day, a home show, another home and Garden Show, and events all over the valley.

The MWV Chamber of Commerce has a growing list of spring events on their web site calendar www.mtwashington.org , where everyone can start planning ways to get involved.

Like everything we do in business, let’s look at the situation and see what we can make of it, not what’s bad about it. Watch for daffodils and lilacs, new song birds and bear cubs, children playing outside (yes, in the glorious mud) and think of new things you can do to improve your life, your work and your community.  Happy Bud to Blossom Season!
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