Business Strategies In A Recession: How to Create Loyal Clients & In Doing So Steal From Your Competition - By Don Farrell

I think this is unethical because that same person has been using your competition for many years now and you did not know it. Long ago you could have had this event at your hotel, providing for your employees and their families; providing for the hotel ownership so they could have afforded to invest in needed capital items; helping your brand grow stronger each booking at a time; making it easier for lenders to say yes to investments needed to keep your hotel competitive and the list goes on to your vendor partners, community and so on. It begs the question 'how happy or unhappy has the client been at your competition?' Would that person have moved to your hotel much sooner if you would have bumped into them, sat next to them, or better yet....you planned to meet them sooner? Sitting here right now you do not know who they are or who they work for but you plan to find these kinds of opportunities each and every day. If you don't do that now, you certainly should. There are many people who are counting on you to provide for them and the truth is some of these employees counting on you don't even know who you are, or what you do or how much power you possess to impact their livelihoods, but man they need you none-the-less.

In one of the fifty stories I tell in my new book, 'Ethical Theft', I would go up to a meeting that would be breaking at my competition and I would approach the person closest to me and ask them who the person in charge is. He would point out the person to me and I would wait until that person would finish whatever they were doing before I would approach them with my business card in my hand. I would say something like 'this is not the right time or place to go into this, but I wanted you to know that I would love to have this meeting at my hotel. Could I please make a call on you after this meeting is over this week to talk about it?' 85% of the time this person would either think or say I was crazy. I would say 'I don't know if I am a little crazy doing things this way, but I what I do know is that I am more confident in my hotel to do a better job for you....that's why I do it.' If it is a sales meeting that is taking place I have often been brought into the meeting room after everyone has returned from the break and sat down. The leader of the session would announce what I just did and would ask if any of them would be willing to do that....sometimes a hearty applause would follow. I said 85% kept an open mind, the other 15% would think that I was nothing short of a river pig and would not want to have anything to do with me....probably a bunch of accountants. If I could bat .850 and impress 85% of the people I first meet then those are pretty good odds that I can live with.

If I can liberate business from my competition then that client was not as loyal as they needed to be and it was just a matter of time before they sit on a plane with someone someday and decide to move their business elsewhere. Is that stealing? Or is it just fast forwarding the process a bit? If you can steal from your competition, then they deserve to lose it. If someone steals from you, then shame on you....you deserve it. Same goes for employees too.

So when does loyalty begin? What happened to just satisfying people? I was a speaker at a conference several years ago where we asked the audience to open their wallets and count how many 'loyalty programs' they belonged to. The average was 8 programs per person and in some cases they belonged to several competing programs at the same time. Satisfaction is not the goal, loyalty is and it can't come in the form of just a marketing program. It has to come in the one on one dealings with each and every one of your employees. Each and every one of them from the person who answers the phone to the person who fixes the toilets. If they are that good then your guest and your customer will know that the people running that ship are geniuses. You have figured out that flat screen TV's and free internet are cool things to have, but the deciding differentiator in how you drive loyalty lies within your greatest asset....your people. Many talk a good game here, but very few deliver like they should.

So, what are some of the things that you can do to communicate and show that you desire loyalty....better yet, that you want to earn their loyalty? Well, it starts with that first sales call. That sales person needs to care more than their competition does. If they have to fake it, or invent it, or pretend it....then they are the wrong salesperson or they work for the wrong hotel (maybe both). You can't fake caring and you can't fake wanting to earn your customers loyalty. As a leader, see talent anywhere and everywhere you go and when you spot it...steal those people. Have a value proposition ready to go for that potential superstar employee. Chances are you can't steal them on the spot, so set up a meeting over coffee and talk about what is important to them before you ever tell them what is important to you. Tap into their wants and needs just like you do your customers. Treat your employees like volunteers that could be gone tomorrow if you don't give them what they need to be successful (guidelines, expectations, training, resources, score boarding and more care than they have ever gotten from any employer). Now you are starting with people that truly care and want to succeed....things that are hard to impossible to teach.

You educate your staff on how you compare to the competition. Some have better amenities, some have better locations....but none....absolutely none of them will have a greater desire to make that guest happy and loyal. Nobody will be able to take that from you or copy it. It is something you are constantly defining and refining.

All of your employees will know that the customer is not a dollar sign or an American Express card. They are real people that want to be recognized and felt connected just like all of us do. You see them as real people with real needs and real challenges that you can help them with. Here is an example of what I am thinking here: you have a 'policy' (doesn't that word give you chills?) that your clients sign an agreement to use your sleeping rooms and meeting space. Several days before their planned event the meeting planner has something happen to their chairman and featured speaker for the day and they have to cancel. By the letter of the agreement they owe you for the applicable charges. Instead, you not only void those charges or maybe give them a total credit for the same function in the future, but you call on that chairman in the hospital with a huge card signed by every employee in your hotel. You offer any help that you can to the chairman's family and fellow workers. You mean it and it is real. On a happier note, you tap into your client's hobbies and interests and give them a gift. It could be a book, an article or connecting them with someone of similar interest. Real people serving real people. Ritz Carlton wants ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. For the rest of us just being real people serving real people works. Net net, when you and I are old and grey and we are sitting on our front porches telling our grandkids some of the cool things we saw and did, I promise you it won't be about the financials. It will be the about the human interest stuff. The things you did and they did and the things you accomplished together with your staff.

Measure the worth of your clients or potential clients not just by the small meeting they can give you today. Measure them over the course of the next ten years or more of small meetings. Measure how much they will say about you and your operation and how loyal they are because you communicated care and then delivered it every single employee experience at a time. With this kind of culture you will kick the snot out of your competition who wants to focus on plasma TV's and free internet service. You will be well on your way to fostering loyal clients.

Another story from my book before we wrap it up this week....'A Salute to Industry'. I would approach our top six clients and tell them that we have been thanking them for far too long now and it was high time we helped them improve their profits as well. I would explain that we wanted to dedicate a space in our hotel for them to advertise their products and services. We would calculate how many guests would walk past their exhibit over the course of a month and the number would be quite impressive....it even surprised us when we first calculated it. So for 30 days there would stand an attractive display behind velvet ropes, a sign telling our guests who this client is and how they can contact them if they wanted to hear from them. At the end of the month when it was time to take their display down for the next client, we would have a cocktail and hors d' oeuvres party around their display. We would take an 8X10 photo of the event and mount it in an attractive frame and mount it on the wall where the display would be for posterity. We would also send a similar photo to that company for their use (pr, company newsletter, annual financial statements). We were in essence thanking them for their business by helping to provide them with business as well. Now, for the remaining six months of the year we would ask POTENTIAL clients to advertise their 'wares' in this Salute to Industry area. We would have a reception around their display at the end of thirty days and they would see a wall with pictures of our happy existing clients. We would now be on a fast track to liberating more business. What was normally dead space in our hotel became a real profit and social center of attraction. I would sometimes be passing by that area and see an unknown guest looking at it and picking up a brochure to learn more about that company. I would approach them and tell them who I was and tell them the cool things about our clients or hopeful client's product or service. A real person having a real conversation with a real person who had real interest. How cool is that?

About the Author
Don Farrell started as a pot scrubber for Marriott Hotels in the early 1970's and worked his way up through many ranks winding up in the sales office where he found his true passion. After another dozen years working in different hotel selling capacities, markets, brands and situations, Don founded what would later become the largest and best training company in the world, Signature Inc. In over 20 years as Chairman of Signature, Don developed the core sales and service training programs that he personally delivered to over 500 training events and many thousands of clients. 300 keynote speeches later Don sold Signature to his partner after the company had grown to 265 employees and licensees in over 44 countries. He started his new venture called Fresh Revenues so he could deliver even greater guaranteed levels of revenues for his clients and also help distance them from their competition permanently. Don's first book of ten that he is working on is about to come out in late September and it is called 'Ethical Theft....how to steal business from your competition'.

About Fresh Revenues

Fresh Revenues is a company dedicated to increasing revenues and delivering results through high impact speaking engagements, interactive and uber-energy workshops and true partnership consulting.

Logos, product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Reader Comments:

Be the first to leave a comment for this article

Tweet