CEO to CEO

Customer Betrayal and the CEO’s Reaction

By Robert Sher

I had a series of conversations with chief executives who were angry with some outgoing customers, and rightly so. One firm had delivered great service for seven years to a major multi-national (and bent over backwards many times), but a new top executive who only wanted to deal with “big” suppliers solicited bids to replace them. He told the bidders to assume that they would “inherit” the incumbent’s employees. The loss of this customer will really set back the supplier, and most likely performance will slip for the customer too since the new provider is not a specialist. With the pain of this loss quite fresh, (the transition is happening now) the CEO swore he’d never go the extra mile for a customer hoping for loyalty. Is he overreacting?

Not a Retailer-You're a Coach with Products

Summary: Small retailers struggle to compete with mega-stores. This article focuses in on how to select the ideal, loyal customers for such a retailer, and how to provide services that large competitors cannot match. This requires a changed mindset from traditional retailing to a customer intimacy or coaching model.

Investing in Growth or Throwing Cash Away?

Summary: Too many businesses spend their positive cash flow on failed attempts to scale up. The article discusses the process for proving scalability of a sales and marketing engine long before starting the spending.

The Benefits of Leading in Industry Organizations

Summary: Getting involved in industry organizations as a volunteer/leader pays big dividends for only a small amount of time and energy. Read about specific benefits as well as a few words of caution.

Get In Their Faces!

Summary: Face-to-face prospecting creates strong and profitable business relationships. Without cold-calling skills, a CEO forms strong client bonds by using persistence, discipline and focus. The advantages of this technique are examined and explained.

Get Out!

Summary: Getting your body out of your office and face-to-face with the marketplace and its players is critical. Valuable insights will be gleaned.

Selling through Education

Summary: If your prospects don’t understand your value proposition, educate them. The company developed conferences to reinforce its solutions and position itself as a knowledge leader, which leads to higher sales. Learn the keys to creating a great educational setting.

Closing the Feedback Loop

Summary: Customer feedback is an important part of every successful company. After scaling up his business, a CEO struggles with his company’s feedback system before closing the loop and improving response rates. Effective processes for handling feedback are examined.

Give First, Then Ask

Summary: Start relationships with others by giving them something of value first. Quality people will give back, creating a cycle of generosity.

From Service to Process to Product

Summary: Sometimes we sell more than a product or service. By learning his clients’ businesses and modifying his own company’s offerings, the CEO creates more value for everybody.