Building Projects (and Relationships) in the Dark
Imagine with me for a moment that you and your team are working together to build a project vehicle. Because of scheduling challenges, each of you has to take separate turns doing the work. When your turn arrives, you enter the workspace to find all the parts you’ll need. It’s obvious something has been done, but it’s not at all clear how far and where your predecessor left off. You spend the first several minutes of your time figuring out what’s been done and then get to work.
Do You Follow Up or Follow Through?
As a result of putting myself out there, I had the pleasure of meeting new people on a daily basis. That pleasure also came with a challenge: I left each function with a stack of business cards, often as many as 50, and often struggled to keep up with follow-up; that is, I struggled until I created a process.
Through trial and error, defining and refining a process, and observation of how others follow up, I created a best-practices list that I now follow. Before I share that list with you, however, you should know there are two major considerations with regard to successful follow-up.
On Building Better Customer Relationships
Not very many years ago the business world seemed to be in full swing. Anyone who wanted to put forth even a minimal effort was making money at one thing or another. Jobs were plentiful – to the point, in fact, where many could not be filled. Compared with now it was relatively easy for us to sell our services and repairs, because the motoring public had readily available funds or the credit they needed to secure them.
Alignment
No, not wheel alignment – people alignment; aligning yourself with the right people for the situation you happen to find yourself in at any given time.
All the books we’ve read and audio programs we’ve listened to about goal setting and achievement tell us that after we decide on what we want and set a goal we have to make and stick to a plan. Part of that plan has to be identifying and aligning ourselves with people in the right places who can help us get what we need.
You Can’t Get a Lot for a Little!
Although some customers will try to get away as cheaply as possible, most realize that they have to at least pay a fair price to get a car fixed properly. Fortunately for us, people who place quality and service above price outnumber those who don’t by four to one. That means that about 80% of your customers are far more motivated by the look and the feel of the service than the price of it.
