Reduce Workplace Stress During The Holidays

Here we go again.  The Holidays.  It is one of the busiest times of the year in resort communities like the one I live, and it can be especially stressful  because it occurs at the beginning of the tourist season when companies are still staffing up and training new employees.  Helping your employees to deal with holiday stress is one of the most important things that you can do as your valued customers arrive in hordes.

Slow Marketing

Perhaps you're familiar with the international "Slow Food" movement.  As the name  implies, it is the antithesis of the more familiar cultural term "fast food."  While nationwide chain restaurants continue to focus on how to cook meals faster, cheaper, and more homogeneous, the slow food movement embraces the unique characteristics of regional cuisine and strives to promote sustainable farming & ranching.  At the root, it is an artisan movement focusing on quality rather than quantity, and experience over efficiency. 

Copy This Practice

Earlier this month, my wife went out of town for a couple of weeks to help her company with a project in Denver.  Before she left, she asked if I would bring her car in to have some service done, to which I agreed, of course. 

As I called Teton Motors, our local GM dealer, to schedule an appointment, it occurred to me that the car would be listed under my wife's name.  When I arrived at the dealer a few days later, I let the gentleman behind the service desk know that I was dropping the car off for my wife, offering her name to help him easily locate the file in the computer.  Sure enough, he found it right away.

"My name is Bruce," he said extending his hand over the counter to shake.  "Please let me know your name, and I will add it to the records for this vehicle."

Immediately, I was impressed.  This gesture seems simple enough, but believe me, it is more complex than you may imagine.  Bruce identified an opportunity to use a conversation to connect with one of his customers, and he executed it very well.  Let me explain.

Know Thy Customer

I made the mistake today of Googling "Ten Commandments of Marketing." I wanted to know where "Know Thy Customer" ranked on the de facto online authority (as deemed by the highest search engine rank). Looking back, I know it was a dumb idea. I had expected that a dozen or so people would have posted their version of this fictional list of marketing dos & don'ts, but I had no idea that there would be more than 83 pages of results! That is more than 800 individual websites referencing some version of the Ten Commandments of Marketing. 

Ten Commandments of Modern Marketing

...Social Media Marketing

...Guerrilla Marketing

...Green Marketing

...Networking

...Better Networking

...Great Networking

Then things started to get weird...

...Ethnic Marketing

...Marketing for Chiropractors

...Marketing & Promoting a Horse Business

And my personal favorite: 

The Ten Commandments of Mafia Marketing

I also really enjoyed the Hip Hop Ten Commandments which really had very little to do with marketing, but almost made me fall out of my chair from laughing.

Tipping Points

On a recent trip to Vermont I was informed by the reception staff while checking in that the hotel did not provide housekeeping services. This struck me as odd, but I shrugged it off, as I was staying at a small inn in rural Vermont, not the Four Seasons George V in Paris. Upon entering my room, I was shocked to see this small envelope placed on the top of the dresser.

("This envelope is provided if you would like to leave something for housekeeping")

Listening to Guy Kawasaki

A couple of months ago I had the opportunity to hear Guy Kawasaki speak at a conference in Banff, Alberta. I was very excited to hear Guy live and in person, because I have seen his books in just about every airport bookstore I have visited, though I have never actually bought one. Of his, that is.

Interested vs. Interesting

Here is a fundamental difference between sales & marketing. Traditional marketing has always been about grabbing your customer's attention and getting them excited about your product or service; being interesting.

Sales, on the other hand, is all about conversation; two-way dialogue. And one of the hallmarks of conversation is that both parties have to be interested in what the other has to say.

Farmer Dale & The No-Sell Sale

I love coffee. Seriously, I looooove coffee. Anyone who has ever worked in an office with me knows this first hand. I have seen the concern in their faces as I brew up another pot at 3:30 pm in the afternoon.

"We probably don't need a full pot," they warn.

"Yeah, I'm done," another co-worker quips.

"If I have a coffee this late in the day, I'll never get to sleep tonight."

What these people fail to realize when they first meet me, is that I don't expect any body to drink more coffee at 3:30 in the afternoon. I am brewing the coffee for myself. All of it. I have never had trouble sleeping after a good cup of joe. I routinely cap off my evening meal with a steaming cup of java, and sometimes have one right before bed. To me enjoying the smooth earthy taste of a warm cup of coffee is the perfect way to relax.

Dialogue Consulting

While everyone is searching for the next-great-marketing-trend, that silver bullet that will increase awareness, create buzz, and go viral, the marketplace has become so cluttered that it is almost impossible to see the forest from the trees. The simplest and most cost effective way to increase revenue for your business is to focus on SALES!

SALES IS NOT A FOUR LETTER WORD.

Okay, it's five letters, but that's beside the point. Sales is often considered the boring step-sister to the flashy world of Marketing, but here is a newsflash for anyone who believes this. Sales is everything. Every relationship that you and your employees develops with a client, a partner, a co-worker, and even a competitor is SALES!

THE CONVERSATION IS THE RELATIONSHIP

Dialogue Consulting is committed to helping you and your employees to build and foster successful relationships throughout your business. This strategy begins with the fundamental concept that two-way communication defines any relationship. If you are ready to boost sales, engage employees, and create customers-for-life, give us a call. We need to talk.

Phone: 307-699-1159

Email: jmorgan@dialoguesales.com

www.dialoguesales.com