Good Morning!
It's the day after Spring Break... (need I say more??) However, the good news is the sun is shining, birds are chirping, flowers are beginning to bloom and the grass is greening up. Spring is finally here! What a beautiful time of year to sell real estate. Enjoy it!
Today I'm going to share a recent blog post by my grandfather, Wesley Zimmerman, who's still an active business consultant, speaker and author. If you like what you read, feel free to subscribe to his blog. He offers weekly tips based on years of successful sales and life experience that are still very applicable to today. Enjoy!
Responsiveness and Loyalty
Is there a limit to loyalty? My association with computers began when I first sold one in 1957. It was a team effort, as so many sales efforts are. I learned, used three popular programming languages in the years following and became a recognized “expert”. The modern PC and mobile versions now boggle my mind. When I cannot see a way through the fog of updates, downloads and “help” messages, I turn to my “expert”.
I’ve known, admired, respected, liked and worked with my expert for twenty plus years. I’ve watched him grow a solid business helping poor, non-experts like me. Recently I was stumped by our computer set up. It simply would not work, it stopped our company and business cold.
I thought I knew what should be done to remedy the situation, but I needed reassurance. I called my expert for that and as always, I got his outgoing voice mail message. I told the message machine that a return call would suffice but if he happened to be in our area of the city, I’d love it if he could stop in and take a look. I stressed the need for a quick response. I replayed the message to make sure I said it right…
Overnight I decided on a course of action. Before executing it, I called a wonderful lady friend and explained the situation. She knows just enough about computers to turn hers on and off; however, she is very logical in her thinking.
“Why don’t you try this first, before you do what you have in mind?”
We did, it worked!
My expert has never returned my call. He rarely does, and when he does it will be several days after I left a message. One of his big customers is a friend of mine. He gets the same treatment.
Am I being too loyal?
Friends we will continue to be, but…
I practice and have been teaching others a simple rule:
Answer every phone call if only to leave the message: “I’ve heard you, will get back to you in ___ hours / ___ days.”
Reply to every email with “Thank you” or “Thanks, have a great day” or “Try this or contact ________ for help.”
Say something so the other person knows you are still alive and care about her/him.
Nuff Said !!!
Wes Zimmerman
Email: wes@7one.com
http://7one.com/blogwes/
©Wesley W. Zimmerman 3/25/2012
Your Partner in Greater Success,
Bill Zimmerman
Monday, April 2, 2012
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