Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

If you want to create a legion of satisfied and loyal customers, you’ll need to learn what I learned in one of my first sales jobs. 

As a college student, I spent one summer selling encyclopedias door to door. After a week of training, I went into the field, where my initial day was a picture in contrast. I knocked on over a hundred doors only to make two presentations. My first presentation resulted in a sale, but the second one, the people practically threw me out.

Somewhat perplexed, I sought advice from my father, who spent his career in sales and sales management.  “Dad,” I said, “I can’t figure it out. I made the same presentation to both customers and got entirely different results.” My father asked, “Was everything the same?” “Of course it was,” I answered. “I’ve been practicing my presentation for a week.” My father asked, “Was everything on both calls exactly the same?” I thought for a moment. “Everything was the same,” I said, “except the customer.” My father smiled and then congratulated me on discovering one of the essential keys to sales success: People are different.

If you want to sell them, you must do it the way they want to buy, not how you like to sell. Mastering this skill helped me sell a lot of encyclopedias that summer and helped finance my college education. If you take my lesson to heart and master the same skills, it will go a long way towards building your customer satisfaction and loyalty.