Separate Yourself From The Competition

Years ago while selling for a medical distributor, I was trying to think of a way to differentiate myself from my competitors and aside from all the features and benefits, which I've been through a hundred times with my customers, I needed something else.  I couldn't just rely on the old standards which had worked before, because to be honest, my company had failed to deliver on a few promises, and so the customer's perception was that "I" had failed to deliver on "my" promises.  I don't separate myself from the company when things go bad, that's the sign of a poor sales person.  You can't do that, otherwise not only do you lose credibility, so does the company and before you know it; you've lost the account.

So one particularly large customer had been unhappy with the service because THEY had ordered product incorrectly, picked the wrong item codes, and as a result the order was screwed up.  First of all, you can't tell your customer, "Well the order was wrong because you're an idiot and you gave us the wrong product codes."  Instead you say, "I guess there was a miscommunication on our part as to the specific products you wanted."

Or if you're in medical sales you can't say, "You and your stupid staff can't fill out the Medi-Care paperwork because you're mentally challenged, so they didn't approve the order for reimbursement".  Instead you have to say, "It was my understanding we didn't ask you for all the information correctly, and so the order wasn't approved.  That's our fault for not verifying all of the information.  I'm so sorry."

Therefore, I was back pedaling with this account because we had a few minor glitches, but I really needed something to separate myself from the other competitors.  They were knocking on my customer's door at all times, and in some cases the account was still placing orders with the competition.  I thought to myself, "How can I make this a personal relationship rather than just a business relationship?".  And I remembered that all the people in this account loved dogs.  Just loved them!  So what did I do?  I scheduled an appointment for my dog to be bathed and cleaned at a place near the hospital. 

That way I could tell the main contact, "If I come by on Friday can I bring my dog?  She gets groomed at a place right near the hospital and I need to pick her up around 3.  Is that okay with you?"

When I mentioned my dog, he was excited. "Oh that's right you have a dog too.  Sure not a problem.  I'd love to see your pup.  What kind of dog is she?"  I asked this knowing that he had the same type of dog.

"She's a Pointer."

"Well I'll be!  I have a Pointer too!  I'll bet you knew that didn't you?", he said.

" I had a general idea.  But I wasn't sure if that was your dog in all those pictures in your office."

"Yep.  Sure is.  I love that dog.  Had him for years.  Ya know those are great hunting dogs."

 "Really?  Well I don't take her hunting.  Just up on the hiking trails.  We'll just visit for a little bit.  Won't make a sound or be any trouble at all.  Be there around 3:30.  Is that okay?"

" Heck yeah! Bring her on by, I'm sure everyone in the office would like to see her too."

     Friday came, I dropped the dog off in the morning for grooming,and came by to pick her up at 3 pm.  She was soft and clean, and she smelled good.  Perfect since we were visiting a medical clinic. We went to the account which was in a large medical building, but security guard thought she was a "Special Needs" dog so it was no problem taking her on the elevator.  I suppose he took one look at me and thought I had "special needs".

Two minutes later we were in the lobby, and the staff was playing with the dog, the key contact was petting her, and I had made a big difference in how the account now viewed me.  I wasn't just a sales person anymore, I was more like a friend.  And my company wasn't just another company anymore, they were a company "with a heart". 

    In order to be successful in today's business climate, you have to be able to separate yourself from your competitors.  Sometimes the only way to do it, is to make it more personal.  So if you have a child, a wife, a dog, a cat, anything that makes you seem more humane and therefore more trustworthy to the customer, then bring it up.  Try to get them to meet your child, your pet, or even your spouse if you think it'll make a difference.  I'm not saying bring your kids to the account and say, "If you don't buy something from me, they'll starve." That is not a good idea.

But only bring them for a visit, if you think it will matter and the customer feels comfortable.  You don't want to be bring your dog or child to every account, especially since you run the risk of them peeing on the floor or even worse...biting someone.  Those baby teeth can really hurt.

Make every day memorable.


-M

Careful What You Wish For...

I've been working on a large office of doctors for over 2 years now, and with 2 different companies.  It has been difficult to get any business from this group of doctors and I have been unable to figure out exactly why they don't order from me.  This is a great account to secure for any healthcare rep, but the doctors are very obtuse when it comes to describing their vendor preferences. Here's a typical conversation with the lead doctor, during an in service, at this specific clinic:

"Hey Doctor A!  How are things?  Are you doing well?"

"Oh yeah I'm good.  Really good thanks.  And thanks for bringing us Baja Fresh.  I love this stuff."

He sits down and starts eating part of a chicken burrito.  So I think this will be a perfect opportunity to figure out what the hell is going on with this particular account.

"You used to order a lot of product from us.  What's happened to make you start ordering from other companies?  Have we done something wrong on our end?"

"My foot is sore.  I went skiing this weekend.  Have you ever been skiing?", he said and started rubbing his foot.

"No I haven't.  I usually snowboard.  I feel like you're avoiding the question doc.  Is there a reason you don't order from us?"

"Skiing is hard.  I think I twisted my ankle.  Did you watch the Laker game last night?  Kobe was on fire."

"Yeah I did catch the game.  It was great.  Is there some reason you're not answering the question directly?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact there is.  I just got a bad case of indigestion from this burrito and it hurts to talk.  Can we pick this up at another time?  Excuse me buddy I need to go to the bathroom.", he said and took the burrito with him him as he headed towards the bathroom. 

And here's how another conversation went, with yet another doctor who is Asian, and does a lot of the work for the Medical Director.

"Hi Dr. W.  I haven't seen you in a week.  Listen, you know most of what goes on around here.  Can you tell me why Dr. A has stopped using us for supplies."

"My Engrish isn't so good.  You talk him."

"What?  You're english was fine last month when I in serviced the account."

"Yeah.  I go back to Mandarin.  Better for me."

"Since when did you start speaking only Mandarin.  You went to Crespi and graduated from USC?!  When did you lose your ability to speak English."

"Today! Gotta go.  Rotsa patients.", and then she ran away.

After those two conversations it was obvious that the doctors were not going to help me secure any business.  So I asked some of the Medical Technicians who I should speak to if I wanted to get some orders.

 They all said the same thing, "Tiffany runs this place.  She has for the last ten years.  You want the docs to order from you.  You gotta win her over.  Otherwise you'll get nothing.  She's the office manager and what she says goes.  Even the doctors listen to her."

I took that to heart, and so I started to work on getting orders from Tiffany.  I set up a few in services and she was nice, but still no orders from the office.  I started to experiment with the in services.  I made up games and gave out candy for the correct answers and the staff started to warm up to me, but still only an occassional "hello" or "how are you" from Tiffany.   She was as cold as ice.   So I had to change my strategy. 

I took it on as a personal goal to find out more about her.  What she liked, what she didn't, and what reps were successful with her, and which ones weren't.  The girls in the office liked me and they were very accomodating and forthcoming with personal information.  She was married, and had two kids which she sent to private school.  She had been married for ten years now happily, and she loved her kids very much.  And I realized this was my way to ingratiate myself to Tiffany, through her children.  I liked kids, and I wished I had some of my own, but I did have 9 nieces and nephews so I had a great deal of exposure to children.  I went down this path, and I hope it would lead to developing some type of relationship with Tiffany, the key person to my success in the office.

So we starting sharing baby stories.  She told me how her first baby got really sick with her as a new mother just freaking out, and then I shared a story where my nephew threw up on me. And then she told me about a time when her little girl had a 105 fever and she was taken to the emergency room, while I shared a story about my niece throwing up on me. It went on like this during a break at an in service until finally she got the idea that I liked kids, or maybe I just liked having them throw up on me.  Regardless, her cool demeanor started to melt, and by the next time I came to her office, she was greeting me and not the other way around.  Everything was going great...

But like all relationships there are peaks and valleys, and while we were at our peak, Tiffany decided she wanted to take our relationship to the next level.  I really didn't know what that mean to her, but to me it meant she was finally going to place an order from my company.  I stopped by for a visit and dropped off a thank you card for her, as I always did.  She called me almost immediately.

"Hi!  Thank you so much for the card!  You made my day.  I'm so excited that I even placed an order for you today.  The first one.  What do you think of that?"

"That's great Tiffany.  Now you just made my day!  Thank you so much.  I really appreciate it."

" No problem.  You deserve it.  Took you long enough to get one.  Hahahaha"

I laughed along with her and then told her to have a great weekend and hung up the phone.  I was so happy I was finally going to start getting orders from this account, it had made my whole Friday complete.  I was beaming from ear to ear when I got a text from a number I didn't recognize. It read:

"What are your plans for the weekend?  Are you planning to misbehave?"

"No not really.  Who is this?"

"Oh.  It's Tiffany silly.  This is my cell phone number.  So are you planning to misbehave?"

At this point I thought this was a little odd, since only recently had we just begun to speak, let alone start sending each other dirty text messages. I usually waited for the 6 month mark before I started sending sexually explicit messages to my contacts.  And besides, she was married with kids so I was taken aback by her desire to reach out to me. I blew it off as just someone wanting attention, and responded accordingly.

" I don't always misbehave, but maybe this weekend I will since you finally placed an order. =)"

" Well if that 's what it takes to get you misbehaving count me in! I'll order from your company all the time."

" Hahahaha.  Thanks so much and have a great weekend."

At this point, I thought it best to not let it go any further, so I tried to cut the text conversation short.  I felt it best to not let her lead me down a dangerous path of miscommunication via text.  But she was not about to give up.

"Are you planning on a memorable weekend?"

"I hope it's memorable."

     She then sent a picture of her in a short skirt.  A very good picture of her since she was an attractive woman, and it had a caption which read:

"I can make it a memorable weekend for sure."

Now I was in a panic.  I had been struggling for years to get this office to place orders, and now that they had finally placed one, I was going to have to sacrifice my soul and my body in order to keep the orders coming.   I didn't want to do this, so I tried to play it off as a joke.

"Nice pic.  Hahaha.  You're so funny Tiffany, and I'm sure that dress would make any weekend for your husband memorable."

" I didn't mean my husband.  I was sending YOU the text"

And this made me start to sweat.  Should I respond, should I not?  If I didn't respond, then she would continue to push the issue, and that would not be good. However if I did respond then she might think that I was down with flirting, and  she would like me to begin sending pics of each other.  I couldn't do that either.  I was not Brett Favre. In fact, I didn't have the "goods" to be Brett Favre.   I decided to respond and tell her I had a girlfriend, maybe this would end the text conversation.

"I appreciate you trying to make my weekend memorable. But you do know I have a girlfriend right?"

"So what if you have a girlfriend.  I have a husband.  Who cares.  Just trying to make both our lives a little more memorable!"

" Hahaha!  Thanks for thinking of me and have a great weekend."

   The conversation ended at that point and for the next 5 hours I didn't receive any texts.  It was 11 pm on a Friday when I received this text from Tiffany:

"Do you like to be tied up?"

" Who is this?"

"Tiffany.  I know it's late but answer the question.  Do you like to be tied up?"

" It's late, and I'm not sure this is too cool.  And no I don't like to be tied up. Good night"

" If you want orders from us, your going to have to let me tie you up.  Otherwise no orders."

By this point, I was pissed off.  I wanted to call her and tell her to fuck off, but instead I took the safer, easier approach:

" Okay no orders then. Good night", I wrote and sent to her phone.

" Don't mess with me or I'll make your life hell."

   Now I was beginning to think she was serious.  And what could she possibly do to me at this point.  The only record of our conversation was via these texts and it was clear she was crazy so I just turned off my phone, and went to sleep.   The next morning I woke up and had 5 missed calls from this crazy bitch on my phone.  I checked my voice mail messages and each messaged didn't sound like her but almost like the devil himself.  She was using one of those voice modulation boxes to place an effect upon her voice and make it sound deep and scary.  It was almost surreal listening to each message and she got progressively more and more angry that I wasn't answering the phone.    As I was listening to the last message my phone started vibrating.  It was her. I was pissed so I answered.

"Heh M this is Tiffany."

" Yes Tiffany.  This better not be another dirty message."

" No that's why I called.  Listen, I lost my phone yesterday and my kids had taken it and were sending all of these nasty texts to people I know and leaving messages on people's phones.   Sorry, but did they call you at all last night."

I was so relieved.  "Yes.  Yes they did.  They left all kinds of messages.  Pretty nasty"

" I am so sorry.  Hopefully you weren't offended by any of the messages."

" No I'm okay.  That last message was pretty bad I do have to say. I can't believe it was from your kids.  How old are they anyway?"

" They're 9 and 12 years old.  Why?  How bad was the message?"

" It was pretty nasty.  Something about tying me up and violating me  with a wooden spooin and all this other stuff."

" Oh my god really.  That was what offended you?"

" Well yeah.  It was pretty disgusting."

" I'm sorry.  But that actually WAS   a message I left for you.  And since it's just us talking and no text, you can't prove I ever said this, but I do want to tie you up and violate you with a spoon."

   I had no idea how to respond to that statement.  I felt like I was about to be violated by some oversexed version of Julia Child. I was speechless.  But Tiffany made sure to finish my statement.

" I hope you liked the message. Call me when you need an order." , she said and hung up the phone.

I just stood there, my cell phone still pinned to my ear, thinking "This is so weird.  I can't believe she wanted to use a wooden spoon.  If it was a spatula, then maybe.  No, no, no!  What am I thinking.  No order is worth the humiliation."

Keep in mind that you might want or wish for something in life, and unfortunately it might not be all that you were expecting it to be.  So be careful what you wish for, because those wishes might come true, but not for you. 

-M