What will it take to get to Amazing?

Many promotional products professionals are really getting beat up on price and see the industry’s products as becoming commodities.  Many people tell me that their customers are demanding them to match or beat impossibly low prices. What is happening out there?

The answers lie in the fact that if you are not growing, you’re dying. It’s brutal, but true. Buyers assume that you will give them quality, service and a low price. The assumption is that you will deliver goods as pictured or promised on time done right. This is the first level of a transaction based sale between a buyer and a seller.

When you raise your performance and give more, you gain a happy customer who expects that you will perform and provide them with peace of mind. Your customer expects and trusts you to make them look good.

What if you can get your client to be impressed?  What would you have to do to impress them? Perhaps you’ve anticipated their need. You may have researched their market position and brand and created some really custom, personalized and “wow-worthy” design. Your client is impressed. They will tell others.

But if you want to move to the fourth level of customer experience?  What will it take to amaze your client and seal your partnership? If you want to be an integral part of your client’s business, to be the go-to resource and problem solver — you need to be nothing short of amazing.  Amazing is hard work. Not everyone can be amazing. Can you?  

These are the four levels of customer service.  

1. Your buyers assume that you will deliver.
2. Your customers develop expectations of how you will deliver.
3. Your clients are impressed with your professional service.
4. Your loyal clients are amazed by what you do, how you do it and just how good you are.  

Here’s the thing. What customers are amazed by today will just impress them tomorrow and by next week they’ll expect it and by next month, it will be assumed.

Creating value and being the best is a journey. You need to get up every morning and ask yourself. “How Can I Be Amazing?”

Do you know your “why?” Why are you doing what you are doing? Please don’t tell me to make money. Money is a result of what you are doing, it is not the why. Your “why” is your purpose. When you find your purpose and live it, you discover meaning and you get to do what you love. When you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life.

When you find your passion and your purpose and live out your “why”, your work becomes a labor of love. Work is what we do by the hour, while Labor sets its own pace.  Living out your mission, you tap into a creative stream that allows you flow — an intense focus and crisp sense of clarity that others notice.  Simon Sinek has a TED video with more than 12.6 million views on YouTube in which he explains the importance of finding your “why”.  He points out that “people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”  

What is your cause? What are your beliefs that drive you and get you out of bed every morning? Why should anyone care? Most of us can explain what we do. Most of us can explain how we do what we do. But can you articulate your “why”?  Are you passionate about solving problems? Are you driven by continuous improvement? Does helping others succeed drive you? Are you trying to make the industry more professional? Do you love being part of the creative process and watching an idea germinate, blossom and flourish?  Find YOUR Why and live it courageously. Steve Jobs said, “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. Don’t settle.”

It is your responsibility to discover your “why”. Once discovered, center your life on it and allow it to flood meaning into your life goals and daily activities and become an everyday source of integrity and pride. Your purpose should be rooted in love, not fear; aligned with your fundamentals, your passions and desires; something that moves you emotionally and not just mentally; be energizing and nourishing; inspiring and worth building a life around.

Here are two ways to help you find your “why”.

1. You’ll find it inside. You already know the answer, but you will find it close. So step back and look inward and then trust your gut. Let go of self-interest and control and reflect with honesty on your values, your beliefs and the things that matter most to you. Ask yourself if your life serves something of value in itself and not just what you think you can get from it. If you can direct your energies in the service of creating a greater good, it will return to you. Allow yourself to have moments of “awe” that put you into the moment. Watch the leaves change color and drift to the ground. Stare at the fire and smell the smoke and hear the pops and crackles. (Hopefully around a campfire or fire pit). Get up and watch the sunrise and see how the colors of the world change and hear the birds greet the new day. And then, listen. To yourself. The answer is inside of you.

Be for the sake of being. Love for the sake of loving. Give for the sake of giving. Trust the world to give it back to you. It always does. It’s the law. The law of the universe. Pursue your purpose with a sense of service to it. When you keep your self-interest at bay, you’re able to find your true purpose.


     2.  You’ll find it by working at finding it.  Steve Pavlina suggests that anyone can do it in about twenty minutes. Begin with an open mind and a commitment to work at it until you get there.  On a blank piece of paper or a new document file if you’re more of a computer person, write “what is my true purpose in life?” Write the first answer that pops into your head. Now repeat that with each new answer that you think of. When you get to the one that makes you cry, you have found it. It could take you one hundred, two hundred or even a thousand answers but when you hit one that hits every emotional nerve in your body, you will have found it.

Will finding your “why” help your business? It will if you make the decision to live it, love it and be it. 

Here’s the deal.  Problem solvers always make money!  No matter what the industry. No matter what the economy is doing. No matter what.  If you can get out of the product selling business and into the problem solving business, you will always be in demand and you will always be able to make money.  Here are five problems that you can solve.

1. Declining or stagnate employee morale.  Companies who have employees who are not happy and not engaged with the company are companies that need a solution. Unhappy employees are likely to turn away customers. They are likely to leave the company resulting in replacement and retraining costs. They are more likely to be injured on the job and take more sick time. Create programs that reward the behaviors that will turn this around. People need to have friends at work and to speak positively about each other and about the company. Engaged employees feel appreciated and can turn a company around. Research has shown that companies that rank among the best places to work outperform others financially.  (Commit to learn about Employee Engagement).
2. Increasing health insurance premiums and workmen compensation rates.  Healthy employees save a company thousands of dollars in health insurance costs.  Safe workers save their companies millions of dollars in insurance premiums and liability costs.  You can solve this problem by recommending programs that reward healthy living and safe work habits.  Wellness programs provide rewards for smoking cessation, weight loss and commitment to fitness programs.  Safety programs are all about catching people exhibiting safe work practices and rewarding them.  Both types of programs are more effective when communicated with promotional products and when they have meaningful rewards.  (Commit to learn about Wellness Programs and Safety Programs).
3. Lack of Customer Loyalty. Many companies are looking for ways to get customers to order and reorder consistently without shopping around every time they are in the market. Loyalty programs recognize and reward shoppers with they be distributors, dealers, retailers or end users for making purchases.  Problem solvers in this area put together programs based on frequency of purchase, size of purchase and purchase cycles to continuously engage buyers. Most of us are familiar with airline and hotel loyalty programs. Apply these principles to business to business opportunities using promotional products and premiums as the incentives.  (Commit to learn about Loyalty Programs).
4. Dwindling Trade Show Effectiveness.  Many organizations exhibit at business to business or business to consumer trade shows.  These face to face sales opportunities can be extremely effective as they bring buyers and sellers together in an environment where the buyer can experience the product and the people behind it.  They are also very expensive. The cost per impression of this medium may be the highest of the available options. The cost of customer contact however is extremely low when compared to individual sales calls.  The trade show exhibitor has the expenses of the booth space, the booth cost, shipping, personnel, travel, hotels and entertainment.  How can they maximize their return on investment?  They can get the most bang for their buck if they can make sure they see the right people and spend quality time with them, can tell them their story and make sure they remember them after the show. You can help them by structuring the right invitations to the right people to get them to attend the show and actually talk to the exhibitor. You can help them achieve this by recommending ideas that will make their theme memorable, that will turn their exhibit time into an experience and by providing lasting reminders of that experience.  (Commit to learn about Trade Show Marketing).  
5. Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers and customers into raving fans.  The new definition of marketing describes the number one problem for any organization. How do you make your offering likable and approachable? How do you earn the trust and business of your new friends? How do you deliver an experience and results that make them want to tell their friends?  If you frame your presentations around these three objectives, you will become not just a swag salesperson, but a professional marketer. We make friends by caring about others, by being authentic, by showing interest in the needs and aspirations of others. It is exactly the same for any business or organization. By recommending products that are relevant to the needs of the target end users, you help your clients be likable, approachable and friend-worthy.  Recommend purchase incentives that help your customers’ prospects comfortable and eager to do business with them. These would be items that are desirable and that take away some of the risk of that initial transaction. Ask your customers what they are doing to make every customer interaction a memorable experience and make suggestions for what they can do to make their customers want to recommend them to their friends. (Commit to learn about Marketing and Advertising).

If you’re willing to commit yourself to continuing education by spending an hour per week of research and reading, to attend the great education and professional development being offered by your regional association, by PPAI, by ASI and even your suppliers, and by logging in to the many available webinars around these topics, you can become a problem solver.  If you choose just one of these five problems and commit to becoming the best problem solver in your world, you will rock your world. You will rock your sales and you will rock your income. Find the Pain. Be the Aspirin.