by Russ Peterson

“It's not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It's the customer who pays the wages.” - Henry Ford

A large collage picture hangs on the wall of an international airline, proudly showing one of the jets of their fleet taking flight through the clouds of a pale blue sky.  Upon closer inspection, you will notice that the picture is made up of thousands of smaller pictures, pictures of the employees that work there.  The display is a metaphor for their company and how they deliver services to their customers.  It is a company of people.  Each individual in an organization provides value that is either directly or indirectly received by the customer.

“Like a chain, we are only as strong as our weakest link.”  Anonymous

By understanding the key role that you play in the development, delivery and support of products and services to your customers, you can better understand the integral role you play in your company’s success.  A solid customer base provides revenue that, in turn, provides the wages to the employees.  Without the customers, there would be no wages and there would be no need for the jobs.  As Sam Walton used to say, “The customer IS the boss.”

“I’m Definitely Not a Salesperson”

While everyone may not be in direct sales with the customer, anyone interacting with the customer is selling, whether they know it or not.  This is direct interaction selling.  The other form of selling is indirect interaction selling.  For example, the accounting and finance team that registers all sales for billing purposes and generates invoices for customers plays a vital role in the satisfaction of a customer.  It may appear that all of their support services are after the sale and cannot possibly be related to sales; however, customers will continue to buy from a provider based on the level of service they receive. 

There are individuals that will deny that they are in sales and will prefer the title of “Customer Service Representative” or “Customer Care Representative.”  They have a distinct negative image of the sales person and in no way do they ever want to be associated with such a stereotype.  That is unfortunate.  While there may always be a small percentage of manipulative salespeople, the majority have understood that integrity in their profession will determine their ultimate success.  Professional selling is based upon understanding the needs of your customer and then making recommendations with potential solutions.  As an example, in the printing business, if a customer wanted to produce a top quality marketing piece and yet they were going to print the piece on the least expensive paper, you might have recommended a higher quality paper to ensure that the customer gets the desired quality that they were looking for in the final product.  If you did that, you were professionally selling.

In your mind you may say, “But I was just providing good service.  I was helping the customer, not selling them!”  That is what a professional salesperson does; understand the customer’s need and assist them in defining the best solution to fill that need. 

Selling Through Service

For a first time customer, often times their only interaction with your company is through one person, the salesperson.  That person “is” your company, to them.  Since they have no experience with your firm and the type of quality or service you deliver, they may ask to speak to your references or they may ask to tour your facility.  The salesperson’s actions, integrity, ability to deliver, attention to detail, professionalism, honesty, and timeliness are the only variables they have to draw conclusions about how it will be to work with the company after the sale.  Understand that potential customers and current customers are constantly gathering and evaluating data to paint a perception of your company.  Over time, those variables will slowly paint a landscape for them.  If that landscape is not a place they want to be, they will become one of the 96% that will take their business elsewhere due to poor customer service.   The bad news is that every bad encounter actually provides 12 brush strokes to that negative picture.  Each good interaction provides only one.  Make certain that every interaction with a customer is providing the right brush stroke in that picture.

It takes a team

An organization cannot be successful if their salespeople are not selling.  Salespeople cannot be successful if they do not have the fulfillment teams delivering quality products and services to the customers.  The fulfillment teams cannot be successful if they do not have an efficient management and back office team providing them with the tools that they need.  The back office and management teams cannot be successful without the stable revenues from selling to properly manage the future.  It takes an entire team to make a company successful.  There is only one purpose at any company, service the customer with quality products and services at a reasonable profit margin.  All job functions within a company are significant to make this happen.  With open communication and mutual respect for the roles that everyone plays, the team effort can provide an overall value to the customer that will generate company sales and growth into the future.

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