Dateline: Last Thursday, at a client Revenue Growth Workshop, with 90 customer-facing staff members in the room.

This is the event that occurs about 90 days into my projects, where we show staff how incredibly positively they are viewed by their customers, and then we ask them to behave accordingly. That is, boldly. To sell more. Immediately.

One after another, we played and debriefed the recordings of interviews I did with their customers.

One after another the customers glowed.

They did not talk about the work very much. Customers rarely talk to me about the products or services, which tend to be commodities.

Rather, they talked about the relationship. They talked about the great value they receive. This is what happy customers do.

They used words like relationship, friendship, dependable, helpful, valuable.

They talked about why my client is better than their competition in very specific ways. Ways in which the audience members were able to understand immediately.

They named names and talked in detail about what they appreciate about their contacts.

One staff member raised his hand and said he’d never been to a learning event where he heard directly from customers. I do it this way because there’s nothing I can say that’s as powerful and positive as what a customer can say. It’s not my sales growth system superimposed on your company. It’s your system, immediately.

Another talked about the great impact this would have on internal morale, between departments that sometimes disagree.

Because customers only call when something is wrong, or they need something urgently.

And so your people spend 100% of their time dealing with the 10% of customers who have problems.

When they are happy, customers don’t call. They’re busy.

We have to get the good stuff from the happy customer.

We have to show your people how good they are because they don’t know. Because they tend to interact with customers who are unhappy.

We have to teach your people their great value.

Then we have to ask them to behave accordingly:

To help your customers more.

To offer additional products and services.

To pick up the phone and call proactively, instead of email.

To ask for referrals.

To ask for the business. Every time.

Staff starts doing this systematically the day they walk out of the workshop. With accountability. With recognition.

This is why my clients add 10-20% to their sales annually.

Because when you understand how good you are, and you start to behave accordingly, how can business not grow? It’s impossible.

Growth becomes the only option.

To discuss doing this at your organization, simply call me directly at 847-459-6322.