Best Way to Sell...is not to Sell

There is nothing worse than having to sit through a time share presentation. You're fished in because of a fantastic offer (free weekend, tickets to Disneyland, free golf etc) and you know that the only objective of the 'representative' is to find out ways to take your money and put it in their pockets. In this day and digital age, if you are not authentic and sincere, you stand out like a dandelion in a manicured lawn.

We happen to own a time share at a resort about two hours away, and have owned it for over ten years now. Very rarely have we ever spent time there, usually opting to trade our week for destinations elsewhere. So periodically we get invites from the resort to come up and visit for a few days and see they 'improvements'. The only condition, of course, is that you spend 'only one hour' in their presentation.

I know many of you have been through this experience. It becomes a game...and the true success is when you can finally escape with your wallet in tact and your dignity secure. What kind of relationship is that?

Over the years, our travelling experiences have allowed us to explore many different alternatives to the time shares. They have left us wanting to return, making the time share experience a thing of the past.

Then there's the phone company....you know the one I'm talking about. Over the years, not only did we get their phone service, we got their satellite, their wireless and their internet. It was all smiles and giggles when we first started our 'relationship', spending thousands and thousands of dollars a year and all was well...until we had problems, which didn't take long.

Every call to our 'friends' at the phone company was directed to someone with little experience with the 'mother tongue'. Every concern turned into a battle of frustration with no record of previous calls or their misguided solutions. Every attempt to communicate turned into an attempt to upsell. What kind of relationship was that?

In fact, once we got rid of them, we ended up getting cards saying 'we miss you', or 'has anyone seen Bill'? We actually received multiple cards of the same issue from their different departments. We received calls from many people in many different departments asking the exact same questions and not having any record of the other calls. How sincere is that?

We still have our timeshare, but for how long is questionable. It served it's purpose, but I am finding many alternatives that we use far more often.....and I feel clean and happy when I use these alternatives. We moved to the 'other' phone company....and so far they are treating us with respect and genuine concern. It appears that they have a centralized customer relationship system where all their reps can see the history of all the previous dialogue. How refreshing is that.

When the focus of the company shifts to true customer satisfaction and clearly demonstrates authentic concern then sales and loyalty are a given. The best way to sell....is not to sell, but to be true, sincere and authentic in every aspect of your organization.

Consume or Contribute - What's Your Value?

It takes at least two to get a conversation going. Well, for most people anyways. And as I go through my various social networking groups I'm amazed to see how many blog posts are created (oh ya, just like this one), how many discussions are started, how many tweets (Twitter posts) are initiated and how many community mass mailings are created only to end up like Gilbert O'Sullivan's song....alone again, naturally!

The communication culture of an organization is really a statement about the community. If a culture of committed communication does not exist, then you really cannot expect the community to exist, let alone grow. So, the question is, who is responsible for maintaining a culture of committed communication? I would argue that absolutely everyone in the organization is.

Linkedin.com provides great demonstrations on the value of committed communication. I've joined a number of discussion groups on this particular social network. In some groups there are over 30,000 members. In others there may be under 30. In the smaller groups, no discussions are ever initiated, and in others there are 10 to 20 discussions posted each day. In any case though, it's a rare occurrence to to see any responses, but when you do, it gets interesting.

Grant it, there are tons of lame discussions initiated, so seeing no responses to those are not surprising. However, there are great topics started and when you have 30,000 members you would think some activity should happen, but it doesn't. When that happens continually, the group ultimately fades away. Members join other groups hoping to find a sense of common unity there. What they fail to recognize though is that the problem typically isn't the group.... it's the members, and at the core of this problem is consumption verses contribution.

For a community to truly succeed, we need to collaborate, share ideas, share values, define missions and reinforce purpose. Members need to continually and positively interact, engage and support the very community that they have chosen to be a part of. If no one is responding then the outcome is predictable.

It takes good leadership to encourage and facilitate a commitment to communication, but it's the membership that needs to contribute to make it work. For me, I'd much rather be part of a community that prides itself on a good balance of consumption and contribution. If it were up to me on Linkedin, I'd 'cull the herd' regularly. Kick out those who are there to simply consume and reward the those who regularly contribute. Actually, we should be doing that in all our groups.

I admit that I am involved in more groups than I can count, and rightfully I should not be in some of the groups because of my inactivity. I have taken myself out of groups for this reason, and if you are not adding any value whatsoever to a community that you have joined....then make an effort and start...or get out.

In an adapted version of the great John F. Kennedy famous statement, ask not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for your community! Contribute, get your fellow members to contribute, and see what happens. There's beauty in collaboration.

Social Culture- Change or Get Eaten

It's hard to focus on the shore when the sharks are biting at your ass. In this recession, where most corporations are fighting for their economic life, trying to focus on changing corporate culture and social engagement is the last thing on anyone's mind, but it's probably the only thing that can save these corporations.

One of the bloggers I enjoy following is David Armano, VP of Experience Design at a company called Critical Mass. He just recently attended the Marketing 2.0 conference in Paris and wrote about the highlights in his latest blog post. In it he describes the experiences that companies such as Lego, Ford and SouthWest Airlines have had by getting involved with social media and social networks. The culture shift that this engagement required was tremendous, but if you ask anyone of them, they would tell you how valuable it has been for their company.

Interestingly enough, SouthWest Airlines has one person dedicated to responding to their customers via Twitter. Now there's commitment, and admittedly they weren't sure how they were going to leverage the service, but they jumped in and eventually figured it out. It's not surprising though. SouthWest Airlines has been recognized as one of the leaders in effective management with their core values focusing on people inside and out of the organization.

In fact, most leadership management consultants have used a video describing the cultural transformation of Southwest Airlines to kick off initial discussions with their clients in an effort to guide cultural change. For years Southwest trumpeted the value of transparency, leading by example, open door policies and authenticity. Employees genuinely love to work at Southwest, and when times got tough, employees remained committed and loyal, as did their customers.

I won't name any organizations, but the same loyalty or commitment to helping the company survive is totally nonexistant at some of the big auto companies, banks or grocery companies that I see. Quite the opposite is happening. Corporations that received big bailouts have to pay their critical staff huge bonuses just to stay.....what does that tell you.

It's never to late to start making cultural changes, but ignore it and look out.

It's not what business you do....it's how you do business that will save you from the sharks, especially in today's social environment.

It's time to get social!