I had the very, very real experience this week to make a support visit to a very senior manager of one the largest customers of a company I advise. The two-hour discussion ended positively – even though I now know that he hates this company. So what. We’ve got to deal with it. That will happen from time to time.
This customer is very intelligent and has been in this company’s industry a long time. He even shaped the industry at different stages of its evolution. ”Then, why does he hate the company?”, you ask. Well, I tell you this story as a reminder that sales is always hard. We must always be selling ourselves. However, in this case via merger, one bad relationship between this customer and one of the company’s inherited senior executives was spoiling the whole barrel of apples.
The fact is, bad relationships are never forgotten. It’s the job of top management to filter for this type of relationship contamination and at least neutralize it – if not to try to eliminate it. The fact is, the company I advise failed to act. We knew the relationship in question was bad and we knew that our manager still carried a small joy in rebuffing this customer’s demands – due to their prior relationship. Yet we did nothing.
Want to know how bad it got? In a fit of defiance, our manager abruptly announced a 60% price increase or we were dropping production of a major project for this customer. That was TWO YEARS AGO. The scars remain and the jousting since then was allowed to continue to the point that we nearly lost our status as an approved supplier most recently. Over what? Ego? Stubbornness? We didn’t need the sales?
It’s coming to me now…… “The customer is always right.” Yes, that old chestnut of wisdom still applies today, doesn’t it? Every company, from time to time, if it is aggressive in achieving its goals, WILL create conflict with a customer. Personalities won’t mix. Your salespeople may cross theirs. Your pricing may make them less competitive. Your credit terms may not work for them. Your values may not be theirs. Once again, so what. Deal with it. In our case, we allowed our manager to be flippant – like Clint Eastwood saying, “Go ahead, make my day.” We should have moved quickly to separate the dueling personalities and structure the communication process to prevent future problems – from Day ONE. Instead, we were more afraid to call our teammate onto the carpet than we were to preserve a customer relationship.
As a result of our inaction, it will take years to fix the damage our scorned customer has done within his organization. Thank goodness, this company performs well (for the most part) or we’d be out on our ear. I told the customer today that while I couldn’t help what happened in the past, we had every opportunity to approach the future with best intentions and the openness to call out when one of us isn’t holding up his end. There’s selling…. and then there is “re-selling”. Sometimes, we sell products and services, and other times we are selling integrity and goodwill while eating a little humble pie.
So I witnessed a little re-selling today. So what. It’s part of keeping big customers who are smart and have options. I am never too good to listen and I hope I can always detect relationship failures in a business and act swiftly. Lesson learned.
-M
Tags: Confidence, Mike Whitaker, Sales Strategy, Starting a Business