APPROACHING PERFECTION

Sir Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls Royce is quoted as saying;

“Strive for perfection in everything you do.

Take the best that exists and make it better.

When it does not exist, design it.

Accept nothing nearly right or good enough”

I won’t get into a long drawn out theological discussion about perfection, however I will point out that Sir Royce says STRIVE. Work towards, make it a goal, and keep it as your highest line of sight. There is a reason for striving for perfection in sales. Here is a Lorin Quote;

“the closer you get to perfection in your customers eyes,                  The more they will forgive the imperfections in you                            and the job you do”

To put this all into simple terms, the more value a customer finds in you the more “STUFF” they will let you get away with. (By stuff I mean mistakes)

As sales reps work with customers they build an account. Just like any account we make deposits and withdrawals. If you go above and beyond what is expected you make a deposit, if you disappoint the customer you make a withdrawal. Depending on the positive balance you USUALLY keep in the account, the customer will usually allow the account to become negatively over drawn. Just like any other account, if it gets too far overdrawn or stays overdrawn for too long the account will be closed.

This is why it is so important to always be striving for perfection like Sir Royce tells us to. You need to be making deposits into your “FORGIVENESS” account with every customer. That’s right, forgiveness account. When you are late they will forgive you if you have a positive account balance. If you forget to do what you said you were going to do, you can make a withdrawal from your forgiveness account. I have seen reps that have had balances so high in their forgiveness accounts that customers have forgiven them for missing an order, shipping the wrong product, double billing, and in one case the customer had to stop production for a full day and still forgave the rep because of all the value the rep brought over the years of servicing the account.

There is a catch to the forgiveness account system, it isn’t a one to one match for withdrawals and deposits. Unfortunately most customers only make small deposits for doing something good and make huge withdrawals when you make a mistake. My suggestion is keep your own set of books. If a customer is about to close your account, have your deposit slips ready and let the customer know how many deposits you have made as compared to withdrawals. (This is dependent on the fact that you have made more deposits than withdrawals).

The deposit slips are also good for helping customers make up their minds about placing orders. Let them know how many deposits you have made and you have their best interest in mind and always work towards perfection with them as an account.

If you will build your forgiveness account balances with all your customers, it won’t be long before your biggest account of all will be YOUR BANK ACCOUNT!

Lorin