The Secret Of His Success
I’ve been searching for a word, one word, for a long time. I just found it via Michael Hyatt’s blog. In case you don’t know who he is, here’s a bit of background for you.
He’s the President and Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the ninth largest publishing company of any kind.
He began his publishing career at Word Publishing while still a student at Baylor University. He was there for about six years. Along with serving as Vice President of Marketing at Thomas Nelson in the mid ’80s, he also started his own publishing company, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, with partner Robert Wolgemuth in 1986. Word eventually acquired their company in 1992.
Then he had a successful stint as a literary agent from 1992 until early 1998. He’s written four books, one of which landed on the New York Times bestseller list where it stayed for seven months.
He rejoined Thomas Nelson for the second time in 1998. Since rejoining, he’s worked in a variety of roles in both divisional and corporate management and was promoted to President in February 2004.
This past year, his company placed nine books on the New York Times list—more than any other time in our history. In addition, sales year-to-date are up 8% over the same prior year period.
While loving his work, it is not the most important thing in his life. That honor belongs to his family. Michael’s been married to his wife, Gail, for 27 years. They have five daughters and two granddaughters. They live outside Nashville, Tennesse, which happens to be about an hour from my corporate office and 2 hours from where I reside.
Nashville is a great city for several reasons :
2) A Cracker Barrel on every corner
3) We have offices there and in Murfreesboro, along with several other cities in Tennessee
During the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Michael’s company provided for some of the victim’s requests, by providing Bible’s. I commented on his blog at the time and have been a reader ever since.
The word he gave me was R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-V-E-N-E-S-S.
I’m often asked what has made the difference in my career, which has amounted to over $35 million in sales of product for the companies I work for. With products that average less than $1 apiece.
Now, I have the word and another person to help me spread the gospel of responsiveness.
In his post, Michael tells us,
” So many people I meet are unresponsive. They don’t return their phone calls promptly. They don’t answer their emails quickly. They don’t complete their assignments on time. They promise to do something and never follow through. They have to be reminded, prodded, and nagged. This behavior creates work for everyone else and eats into their own productivity. Sadly, they seem oblivious to it. ”
When I let a new salesman ride along with me for a few days, he gets to hear me and how I handle my phone calls. I answer ‘em all, or I call ‘em back as quickly as possible. It’s a million dollar education that most never take advantage of. Sadly, after they are out there on their own and I call them to ask a question, they don’t answer and sometimes it’s 2 -3 days before they call back.
Think like a customer for a second. If your rep doesn’t call you back and let you know he’s going to take care of your needs, what do you do ?
You do what I do, you call another rep at another company.
Maybe you can’t take my call, maybe you can’t call back within minutes. But you can call back before you quit for the day. Your day ain’t done, son, til all your calls have been returned.
Here’s another million dollar tip for all you saleman out there. return your calls and let the customer know, with some positive reinforcement, that you have a solution and it’s within his budget/parameters. Let them know you’ve got it under control and are working out the details and will get back to them as soon as you have all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.
I guarantee your sales will go up and repeat sales will skyrocket.
That’s all people are looking for, someone who will get it done and communicate the progress.
Pretty dang simple, if you ask me. And it will work almost every time.
I have never been the cheapest solution in my industry. Never will, either. But I’ve always been the most responsive and I’ve always been as busy as I can stand to be.
Just in case you don’t believe me, Michael’s given us a short case study :
” As I was making my way to the top, my former boss, Sam Moore, used to ask everyone I worked with, “What’s it like to work with Mike ?” “How’s he really doing ?” “Do you think he could take on more responsibility ?” In responding to him, all they had was their experience with me. If I hadn’t been responsive to them, how do you think they would have responded to his questions ? “More responsibility ? Are you kidding me ? He can’t handle what he has now !” It wouldn’t take too many candid responses like that to tank my career.
Michael has also given you some great advice and a warning when he says,
” The truth is, you are building your reputation—your brand—one response at a time. People are shaping their view of you by how you respond to them. If you are slow, they assume you are incompetent and over your head. If you respond quickly, they assume you are competent and on top of your work. Their perception, whether you realize it or not, will determine how fast your career advances and how high you go. You can’t afford to be unresponsive. It is a career-killer. “
Our basic rules are the same: Respond immediately unless there is a good reason to wait.
Obviously, this isn’t always possible, especially since some of you spend so much time in meetings. Never, and I mean never, let messages sit longer than a day. Twenty-four hours is the outside edge. For me, that’s way too long. If you can’t respond now, then at least acknowledge that you have received the message: “ I received your message. I don’t have time to give it the attention it deserves right now, but you can expect to hear from me before the end of the day tomorrow. ”
Do yourself a big favor, click thru and read all of Michael’s fine post and then do something better : Subscribe to his RSS feed. I do.
You can thank me now and later.
Comments
6 Responses to “The Secret Of His Success”
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Hi there,
Trying to be responsive, I would like to say that “R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-V-N-E-S-S” lacks an E.
Otherwise, an excellent article that only reaffirms what I have done my best to tell people in the various web-companies I have worked with…
Best regards,
Haakon R. Ueland
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Great stuff. I linked to this post at:
http://sohosavvy.com/2006/03/04/responsiveness-is-your-competitive-advantage/
Haakon, I located the missing ” e “. It had hidden itself behind a .jpg over on my golf blog, http://www.travellinggolfer.com. It didn’t want to come back, but I convinced it that it was needed and that triggered a response in it’s central nervous sytem that…oh, never mind, I got it back and that’s all that matters.
Thanks for the help and please come back and join in more often.
David, I appreciate the Trackback and I appreciate you taking time to leave a comment.
I loved every word of it. And I’m a believer. Heck I’ve called people to tell them that I can’t talk to them. . . . At least they know that they’re on my mind.
That little action right there is all that’s needed today to differentiate yourself from 98% of the sales people out there.
Kinda like me responding to a comment on a post that’s well over 6 weeks old !