Your Best Customers Are Dying to Tell You!

What you are really selling!

Of all the people in the world, who knows your company best? Your best customers! Who knows how to "sell" your company and its products the best? Your best customers! Who knows what kind of customer service is needed to create real "Raving Fan Customers" of your business? Your best customers!

So how come you aren't talking to them? How come you don't listen to what they have to say? How come you have failed to give them any voice in how you drive your company forward?

Ask yourself this right now - "Have I captured any of my own Raving Fan's stories in their own voices to share the story of how great we are?" If not, you owe it to yourself to read on.

I know, I know, many of you believe that you know your customers. But unless you are very unusual, you are failing to reap the real harvest of new sales that your best customers can lead you to. I make my living capturing the stories of the Raving Fan Customers of my client's companies to Build Unshakable Walls of Belief in them, their products, and their organizations. I do most of these right over the telephone, capturing the Raving Fan's own voice. Then I edit, produce, and convert them to multimedia to be streamed off the web, put into PowerPoint, burned on a CD, or even sent as email attachments.

Let me give you just one example of how powerful this process can be - not only to create marketing endorsements - but to help you discover your real value proposition to position your company.

I had been videotaping the interview with John Lafferty, the CFO-Pro for nearly 45 minutes, when I reached over and shut off the camera. "John, I can't use a thing that we have shot so far," I sighed. "Everything you have told me about what you do could be said about anyone who offers similar services. I just don't really get what you do that is different."

John was crestfallen. "Oh, my gosh, it is worse than I thought! I just can't seem to figure out what I am selling." I reassured John, "You need not worry about this John. You have given me the names of 7 very prominent people who have said they would do Raving Fan interviews with me over the telephone on your behalf. You must be doing something very right to have such loyalty. Let's go ask them what you do."

Within the first 10 minutes of the first telephone interview with one of John's Raving Fans, I had the answer. By the time I had finished all 7 interviews, my initial answer was confirmed over and over again. Here is what John's best customers, his Raving Fans, said about the value of his services:

• Total Integrity - "If John told me the sun rose in the West, I would have to question all my beliefs because he is such a straight arrow." "I would trust John with my own life." Not a bad start for someone to whom you will "open your kimono" and show all your business financial records.
  
  
• Entrepreneurial Spirit - "John does not just say 'No!' He understands the mind of an entrepreneur and works with you to find a way to say 'Yes!" For attorneys and financial advisers the easiest (and certainly the safest) answer is to just say, "No!" But John is that rare breed of CFO (Chief Financial Officer) that thinks like an entrepreneur.
  
  
• Complete Understanding - "John makes 'the numbers' come alive. His customer really understand where their profits are coming from and where they are not!" It was clear from all the interviews that John was a master teacher of business finances. His clients didn't blindly follow his lead and hope he was right. He made it possible for them to understand their finances enough to make their own sound decisions.

Wow! After doing these interviews, I could not wait to re-interview John. The second time we sat down to videotape his interview, it was so easy! I simply asked John why he thought his customers made these observations about him.

"Complete Understanding." That was easy. John had the reputation at Arthur Anderson for being a great teacher so he was often paired up with a young consultant. John took great care to teach his young charge and help him understand finances - especially the stuff the kid would not have learned in a book! John spent his professional consulting career as a teacher. No wonder he was so good at making numbers come alive.

"Entrepreneurial Spirit." This too made sense when you realized two things: John's consulting career with Arthur Anderson often dealt with very entrepreneurial clients, and John was an entrepreneur himself as he was growing his own practice.

"Total Integrity." Hmmm, just imagine if the big wigs at Arthur Anderson had the same integrity as John. They would have never lost their way. It sounds corny to say, but I discovered that John was just an old-fashioned, God-fearing, true gentleman who says what he means and does what he says. It is a character trait that seems to be in ever-decreasing short supply these days - especially in the financial world!

OK, so much for my raving about John Lafferty. (By the way, you can see and hear all the interviews I mention above on John's web site - www.CFO-Pro.com. Just click on "See Hear John" or "Hear Clients Rave.")

What is the "take home" value of John's experience for you? The fact is that in the hundreds of interviews I have done with my Client's Raving Fans I have found these top ten principles to be very consistent:

1. Your Customer's Voice! Yes, you can do customer surveys. Yes, we have done focus groups in the past. Of course, we have talked to customers before. But when we can capture the Raving Fan's own voice. When that Raving Fan can tell their own story with passion, what they say has incredibly powerful impact.
   
   
2. Customers Say it Best! You would pay marketing wonks a ton of dough to get product descriptions that are not near as good as what flows naturally out of a customer's mouth. One Raving Fan recently told me that a product he bought from my client was "Like a Pocket MBA to the Speaking Business!" And when we can post that to a site and attribute it to a CUSTOMER rather than something we came up with, then its power multiplies.
   
   
3. Unleash Your Raving Fans to Sell. What do you suppose happens when one of your Raving Fans has a great, intelligent, and powerful interview placed on your web site? They what others to see what a hot shot they are. When I do interviews I make sure that they come off sounding incredibly glib and intelligent. (Digital audio editing takes care of all those "ums" and "ahs!") You have now given your own Raving Fan a really easy way to give you referrals.
   
   
4. Find Your Raving Fan's Brothers and Sisters! During the interview, have you ever thought to ask your fans what associations they belong to, what groups of prospects they know, and how you could get in front of them. Here's an example. A landscape designer for one of my clients installs a pond in the client's back yard. It looks great! The client is ecstatic. Do you think they might have a party to show off their new pond? Sure. So we do a "Parade of Homes" type of interview with the new pond owner, stream it off of the installer's web site, then give the link to the client to send along with their open house invitations. Do you think the pond owners friends will click on the move to see what their buddy is up to? You bet. Meanwhile, while they see the show, they also discover how great the landscape designer is. Bingo! More Raving Fan prospects!
   
   
5. Taken for Granted. The very thing that you are BEST at doing - the very thing that you can't help yourself from doing - is also the very thing you will most often OVERLOOK when you put together your marketing and sales strategy. AND what's worse, that thing that YOU take for granted, is the very thing your customers VALUE THE MOST! So if you are trying to decide upon your overall market strategy, if you are redoing your marketing materials, STOP and talk to your best customers first to make sure you are selling what they are buying!
   
   
6. Raving Fan Sales Trainers! One of my clients, VP Sales for Aramark Uniform Services, Larry Hake, plays my entire Raving Fan interviews for his sales people. Why? Because who else can teach them how to best sell Aramark's services than their own best customers. And when their salespeople hear these ideas directly from customers in their own voices, they believe them, even though, in many cases, Larry told them the same thing himself.
   
   
7. Raving Fan Customer Service Trainers! Another client, ABF Motor Freight, plays their Raving Fan stories to his customer service folks. First off, it is great to see their eyes light up when their names are mentioned so favorably by their customers. Their chests just swell with pride. Second, they truly discover, again from the mouths of those that matter most - their best customers - that what they do is indeed important. That is great customer service training.
   
   
8. Get 'em While They Are Hot! I know that some of you are saying this: "But I can't get my customers to do this kind of thing. There are corporate rules. They don't want to sell for me." Well, if you "get 'em while they are truly "hot" about you, most of those problems go away. Still, you are right, some companies have strict rules about doing endorsements. But if you get them when they are truly hot, the interviews are so powerful that you can even do them without sharing the customer's name or company and they will STILL SELL FOR YOU. Check out the one I did for Brand Tech for their new ergonomic pipette. Anonymous? Yes? Incredibly believable and powerful - without a doubt. Just listen to it at "High Tech Products"
   
   
9. Someone Has to Do It. As one of my clients, Jim Muehlhausen of CEO Focus, says, "Most companies are terrible at getting endorsements from their Raving Fans. They would be lucky to have one or two from 5 years ago. Just by asking Bill to capture these stories they got done. If it were left up to me, I never would have taken the time to get them. In other words, whether it is me or someone else, you must have someone dedicated to the task, or it won't happen!
   
   
10. Can't Discover it Yourself. When I wanted to discover what it was that I provided my clients, I actually had to hire someone else to interview my own clients! Here I am the Raving Fan expert, BUT I cannot do my own interviews. Why? Think about it. What kind of response would you get if you walked up to a friend and said, "Hey Bubba, tell me just how great I really am!" Now Bubba may well love you, but you will not get him to gush to your face about how great you are. In fact, he is more likely to go the other way!

So next time you are looking to increase your sales, improve your customer service, or just to discover what you are really selling in the marketplace, ask your Raving Fans. They know!

Bill Metcalf, PhD, is a professional speaker and consultant. Imagine having a speaker who makes YOUR Raving Fans the stars of his programs. Imagine having a consultant who can capture those Raving Fan stories to Build Unshakable Walls of Belief in you, your products, and your organization. Bill Metcalf does just that. You can reach Bill at (708) 386-5010, bill@technoshift.com, or on the web at www.TechnoShift.com.