Customer Facing Employees Cost MORE

It’s a costly business to employ customer-facing personnel. (This article will improve their effectiveness) 

Nobody cares about what you do until you tell them why they should care and how you can benefit them. 

Can you do this quickly?

This is what good movies and TV shows do. If the director does not engage you in the story early on, it’s unlikely they will later.

There are more films, TV series and channels than ever before, which reminds me of the line from Bruce Springsteen’s song

“57 channels and nothing on”

How many programmes on ‘The Box’ in the corner have you started watching but have not engaged with, and you have switched to another channel?

My wife has a fail-safe method of judging such shows. Some minutes after the programme starts, she is asleep! I am usually more tolerant and hopeful than her, but invariably, her critique is the right one.

There is an old Bob Hope joke I like, which explains what I’m talking about.

“When speaking to an audience, I do not mind them looking at their watches, but when they start tapping their face, it’s time to stop.” 

Create a good first impression: 

As customer-facing people, our job is to get and hold attention immediately.

When I started in sales as a young man, a much more experienced older man in the company was very helpful to me.

Back then, when preparing to meet customers in different counties in Ireland, he purchased the local county newspaper in Eason’s Book Shop on a Monday morning.

He would then read up on all the latest local GAA results and head off to meet his customers. Happy in the knowledge that he has a conversation opener and a surefire way of engaging his customers.

He knew how to get people’s attention by talking about what was of interest/ important to them.

My best advice: 

If your job is closing deals, talk about your audience’s problems, not your offering. 

Ideally, shortly after the meeting starts, they need to be doing the talking, and you all of the listening.

There’s an old but true cliche: we are given two ears to listen and one mouth to speak.

It requires confidence to stay quiet and allow other people to talk. When nervous, we tend to babble on.

When it’s your turn to talk: 

When you engage with others, you should be talking about the benefits (not the features) of your offering and how their organisation will be better as a result of your intervention.

It’s a costly business to employ customer-facing personnel: 

They are generally better paid and have more costs, e.g., travel/ accommodation, entertainment, etc.

So they must deliver your business message in a clear, effective, and engaging way that immediately resonates with the person they are meeting, whether online or in person.

People with little knowledge or understanding about the problem their prospective client needs to solve must do the following or choose another career.

You must research and prepare; otherwise, you’re wasting your prospective business partner’s time and yours. 

We now believe we are much more sophisticated (than my man who talked GAA) and have a myriad of tools to help us prepare before meeting a prospective client. The latest is AI.

What Would Help: 

If you or your team are experiencing some of the issues discussed above, find a coach who can help you create conversational meetings focused on your audience’s needs.

By Executive Coach Andrew Keogh of Aristo.ie