A Complaint Is a Gift: How to Respond to Online Reviews  🕒 2 min read By Desiree Grace Oh, those pesky online reviews and quirky comments on social media. A busy businessperson doesn't have time to respond, right? Wrong! You cannot afford NOT to respond. A complaint or piece of customer feedback is a GIFT . It is a chance to right a wrong. Many companies, whether business-to-consumer or business-to-business, have staff and alerts dedicated to tracking online reviews and comments about the company. Whether it's Glassdoor, which impacts recruitment and retention of staff, or Facebook, which impacts brand image in the B2C space (especially among middle-aged consumers with disposable income), what is said on social media matters. In fancy marketing talk, we call that "viral effects." Simply put, bad word of mouth on social media can spread faster than a flu virus in winter or a sneeze on a crowded flight. You need to contain and counteract that virus NOW. How ...

The Food Journal for Salespeople:  Finding the Hidden Ingredients Eating Your Selling Time 🕒 6 min read By Frank Hurtte Let's face it: summer is full of distractions. Our customers have vacations, kids' ball tournaments, golf leagues, cabins up north, lawns to mow, and who knows what else. Distractions are contagious. Distributor folks are people too, and we get caught up in the summer stuff, just like everyone else. Sometime around Labor Day, we snap out of our summer-induced haze and put our noses back to the grindstone. That makes fall the perfect time for a sales tune-up. Think of it as an end-of-summer cocktail for a stronger year-end. If you've ever planned to build a new habit, this is the moment. Just ask anyone who has kept a food journal Whether they were tracking down a food allergy, counting macros, or making sure they got enough protein on a GLP-1, anyone who has kept a food journal will tell you the same thing: that first week is a shocker. The handful of chi...

The Customer Complaint is a True Gift By Desiree Grace and Frank Hurtte “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Department of Motor Vehicles.” If you’ve been inside a DMV lately, you already know what customer service isn’t . Endless lines, rigid processes, and staff who look like they’re allergic to joy. They can get away with it because there’s no competition. But if you’re in the real business world? Customers always have other options. And the ones who complain might just be the ones saving your business. Complaints, demands, and challenges…they’re all gifts in (slightly annoying) disguises. Clear, specific, and sometimes blunt customer feedback forces us to improve by having us rethink our habits, modernize our tools, and strengthen our relationships. Meanwhile, the silent customers, the ones who quietly defect without saying a word, are the ones who should keep you up at night. The non-complaining customers are often the ones who go away silently. They don’t com...

Before You Pack the Sunblock, Pack a Better OOO Reply by Desiree Grace A Distributor Channel Marketing Moment By Desiree Grace Ready for some R&R? Rushing out the door to leave work behind? Don’t forget the sunblock, the spare charger, and an extra credit card. And please, before you set that “Gone Fishing” vibe, take five minutes to craft a professional, friendly, and useful out-of-office message. Out of office? Who cares? Your customers and colleagues, that’s who. The tone of your greeting matters. Include an emergency contact who has agreed in advance to be your backup, and provide a way to reach you in a true emergency. Your auto-response while on vacation tells people a lot about you. Forgetting to create one also says a lot, and none of it good. A couple of real-world examples: “Out of the office until August 31.” “Hi! I’m out of the office on holiday, returning August 31. While I may not be checking emails, your message is important to me. Bill can help y...

Clean Up on Aisle Sales: Segmenting Customers and Attitudes By Desiree Grace A funny thing happened on a customer segmentation journey: trash talk, bad behavior, and customer attitudes were exposed. Say what? Yep, when you start dissecting your customers and how you should be treating them, internal dysfunction often slides into the spotlight too. Here’s what happened: I was working with a client, whom we’ll call Zac, who had no customer segmentation in place. That meant every customer was treated the same way. There was no distinction between great, good, or frankly, terrible customers. They all received the same terms, attention, responsiveness... you name it. As you might guess, this was not sustainable. So, Zac and I collaborated on building a customer rubric —a list of qualities to evaluate and score his customers. This helped segment them into tiers, which in turn dictated how they would be managed. Would they be contacted monthly, semi-monthly, or quarterly? Would t...

RHC Marketing Moment: Back to Basics- Your B2B Website Looks Great But Does it Work? By Desiree Grace, Special Projects Consultant Your graphics are fabulous, your people look clever, and the new logo is smart, BUT, are you functional? We see a lot of websites that look great but don’t have a solid foundation. One example of critical importance is a solid cross-reference. Many companies hesitate to put a cross-reference on their website. They fear the competition will use it, they fear if the cross isn’t perfect, it will irritate customers. Newsflash—the competition has already figured out how to cross your products and the customers are more irritated if they cannot self-service a basic requirement such as a cross-reference. You can and should use a disclaimer that the reference is form, fit, and function equal, or, if there’s a doubt, offer to send a sample or a salesperson. Viola! A sales lead! A well-done, efficient cross-reference will save your people and your customers time....

Forget the Crystal Ball: Future-Proof Your Business Using Your  AQ                        By Desiree Grace, Special Projects Consultant   Does anybody out there have a crystal ball? A tried-and-true way of forecasting the future? In the movies, a fortune-teller always sees the future using a crystal ball. With the numerous changes on the horizon, especially after the election, we recognize there are also changes we cannot see. In the supply chain, both manufacturer and distributor and rep agents are watching carefully to see what our new president and his team do. One thing we know is that as organizations and professionals, we need to try our best to prepare.   One way to plan is to build your Adaptability Quotient, aka your “AQ.” What the heck is AQ? Well, it’s a form of intelligence, part of a three-legged stool, along with IQ (general intelligence) and EQ (emotional intelligence). It is the ability to...

Building on the Skills of Inside Sales Staff After conducting dozens of distributor Voice of the Customer surveys and interviewing their key customer contacts, I have discovered one eye-opening discovery. Customers place a high value on inside sales – perhaps higher than most believe. I can still remember the words of a VP of Engineering for a mid-sized OEM: “Tell your client this, despite our primary salesperson’s personality and product knowledge, we depend on the quick answers and problem-solving skills that come from [their inside salesperson] Scott.”    Comments like this reinforce the words of one of my colleagues many years ago. “A good outside sales guy makes the phone ring, and a good inside salesperson keeps it ringing.” In an age of instant gratification, with overflowing product information on the internet, e-commerce everywhere, and customers dealing with a fast-paced work schedule, the necessity for a strong inside sales presence has only increased.   For cl...