Page 130 - Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing - PDFDrive.com

most service providers, Smith & Smith has a deficit. So the mistakes go in the
debit column.

No one at Smith & Smith realizes how far they are in debt. Service providers
always are the last to know, in part because few people like conflict. So clients
often bury grievances rather than air them. Service providers think that the
silence is golden; they think the lack of complaints means the relationship is
going well. But it is growing worse.

This relationship deficit exists in the parties’ other significant relationships:
their marriages. In both relationships, debts grow without either side knowing.
Then one day a frustrated spouse or a frustrated client announces he has had
enough. The other spouse and the Smith & Smith president are shocked. Neither
person understands the unique accounting in relationships.

Watch your relationship balance sheet; assume it is worse than it appears,
and fix it.

The Day After—Why Getting the Business Can Be the First Step
in Losing It

You can generate significant sales for a service simply by promising miracles.
After doing that, you have a new client who can’t wait for the magic you

promised. In short, you have the Client from Hell.
Even if you do a very good job, you have a disappointed client. Your client

wasn’t expecting a very good job; she was expecting a great job. You promised.
This phenomenon is the bane of the collections agency industry, and explains

why that industry is all churn, a constant business of getting new clients to
replace those who are fleeing. The salespeople deliver passionate sales pitches,
the clients sign up, the salespeople pocket their commissions, and the client
thinks those blankety-blank deadbeats will finally pay.

But those blankety-blanks still don’t pay. Only about 21 percent do pay.
Do collections agency prospects ever hear that even a good agency will
collect less than 30 percent of the debts outstanding? No. So 79 percent of their
prospects end up disappointed, and leave for another agency.
If you make a client think you will do better than you can do, the client will
end up disappointed. Even worse, she will decide that you misled her, or lied.
It isn’t worth getting that business. A disappointed person who thinks you are
a liar will usually tell three other people. Suddenly, one great sale has become
four big problems.