“Doctor” Phil Bernstein – Page 16 – Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

How “No” Can Make Your Customers Happy

Seth Godin recently cleared up a years-old mystery for me.

Greg, The Relentless Nibbler

Greg was an advertising agency client when I sold radio. Two or three times a year, he would send me an RFP, I’d respond, and we’d work out a deal. He was a tough negotiator, but he was fair — until the end of the process.

After we agreed to terms, I’d send him the paperwork. A few hours later he’d call and ask me for one more thing. Usually it was some bonus commercials or news sponsorship mentions.

In negotiation, this is called “The Nibble”. Negotiation Trainer Bob Gibson describes the classic version of the tactic this way:

The same way a mouse might nibble at a piece of cheese with small bites until it’s completely gone, ‘nibbling’ is asking for small items, one at a time, and getting agreement on each until you’ve gotten a lot… Nibbling can be particularly effective near the end of the negotiation, when a salesperson is eager to reach a final agreement, and at the beginning when it can set the tone not only for the negotiation – but the relationship as well.

In Greg’s case, the request always came after we’d made the deal. I always said no. It was a matter of principle for me. As far as I was concerned the negotiation had ended.

He’d push a little and then accept my “no”.

It drove me crazy, because it never mattered how many times we’d already gone through the dance with the same result. He never actually got anything extra from me, but he was going to ask again the next time regardless.

I could never figure out why he continued to do this with me when it never worked. What did he get out of the exercise?

Years after I left radio, Seth Godin has finally given me the answer.

What’s really happening here is that people are seeking the edges, trying to find something that gets a reaction, a point of failure, proof that your patience, your largesse or your menu isn’t infinite…

They’re not looking for one more thing, they’re looking for a ‘no’, for acknowledgment that they reached the edge. That’s precisely what they’re seeking, and you’re quite able to offer them that edge of finiteness.

I’ve written before about the power of “No” — there are times when it’s necessary to refuse a demand simply to maintain, or regain, control of an interaction.

But Godin has pointed out something that seems counterintuitive: sometimes that “No” can actually make a customer happy by convincing them that they’ve nibbled everything there is to nibble.

In sales, sometimes “No” can really mean “Yes.”

A Waitress, a Bowl of Oatmeal, and An Advertising Lesson

An Iowa waitress taught me the value of frequency.

Advertising lesson from a waitress — Photo by Sergey Nivens. Adobe Stock

It was a Monday morning in a Cedar Rapids hotel. I was in town to work with a group of TV station salespeople.

I went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I don’t always eat properly on the road, but I can usually get in a healthy breakfast before my self-discipline breaks down.

Glancing at the menu, I decided to order oatmeal.

When the oatmeal arrived, it was anything but healthy. The top layer had some sortof custard; the rest of it was loaded with sugar and other stuff. It was delicious, but it did not mean good things for my cholesterol-control efforts.

I asked the waitress whether the restaurant offered just plain oatmeal. She told me that this was the way the restaurant always served it. Then she paused, and asked me how long I was staying at the hotel.

I told her I would be there all week.

“My name’s Jackie,” she said. “When you come down tomorrow, ask for me. I’ll have the chef make you a bowl of regular oatmeal.”

Tuesday morning I came down to the restaurant and asked for Jackie. “Yesterday you mentioned you might be able to get me some regular oatmeal,” I said. “Let me see what I can do,” she replied. 10 minutes later she delivered a bowl of plain oatmeal to my table.

Wednesday morning, I waved to her as I sat down. “Oatmeal, and a to-go cup of coffee with the check?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied. She had remembered my standard morning coffee request.

Thursday and Friday, we didn’t even have to discuss it. As soon as I arrived, she put the order in with the kitchen. And when she brought the check, the to-go cup of coffee was right there with it.

Three weeks later, I was back in Cedar Rapids at the same hotel. Monday morning, when Jackie saw me she said, “Welcome back, Mr. Bernstein! Plain oatmeal, right?”

That first day, I had to remind her about the coffee-to-go; the rest of the week it all went like clockwork.

Why did I get recognition and special treatment? Because I stayed in the same place for an extended period of time.

I ate at the same restaurant every morning. Seeing the same faces every day, I got to know them and they got to know me. Over time, one of the waitresses learned exactly what I wanted, and I didn’t have to start over each morning.

While I was at the hotel, I met another business traveler who was in Cedar Rapids for a couple of days.

From Cedar Rapids, he was going to Des Moines for two days, and then to St. Louis. He was also having his breakfasts in a hotel restaurant – but every couple of days it would be a different restaurant.

He had to take whatever was on the menu.

Here’s the advertising lesson

With limited resources, you have a choice when you decide to advertise:

You can spread your budget out, and try to reach as many people as possible by doing a little bit of a lot of things. You will be advertising frequently. Lots of people will see you, but they won’t remember you.

Or you can focus your limited resources into a small number of places. You will be advertising with frequency. You’ll reach fewer people — but the people you reach will respond.

The other business traveler — with a couple of days in Cedar Rapids, a couple of days in Des Moines, and a brief stop in St. Louis — had the equivalent of a “media mix.” A little TV, a little radio, a couple of billboards.

He was seen by more people than I was, but he didn’t get to know them and they didn’t get to know him. When he sat down for breakfast, he got what everyone else got.

I had the same resources — five days — but I spent them all in one place. The same people saw me again and again, and by the end of those five days the wait staff knew me.

The other guy ate out frequently; I was eating out with frequency.

Which one of us did better?

Is A “Broken Ice Machine” Killing Your Sales?

Little things mean a lot when you’re trying to persuade.

Details can kill sales — Photo by StockPhotoPro

Not long ago I met with the administrator of a nursing home and rehabilitation center on the East Coast. The center had received some very bad publicity over the previous year after failing several state inspections.

During our meeting, the administrator told me that most of the problems cited in the inspections had been fixed — staff had been retrained and staffing levels increased, new procedures had been put in place and equipment had been upgraded.

She wanted to launch an advertising campaign to get the public to take another look at the facility.

As she took us around the main building, we walked by a row of vending machines.

The soda machine had a sign that said “Out of Order”.

The candy machine also had an “Out of Order” sign.

The ice machine had a sign that said “Please See a Staff Member for Ice”.

It was pretty clear that these machines had been out of service for quite some time. For a business trying to change public perception, this sent a terrible message.

If they couldn’t even bother to fix the vending machines, what kind of shape was the medical equipment in? Were they paying attention to sanitation and infection control? Could local residents trust this nursing home to take good care of their loved ones?

If you work in sales, everything your customer sees is the equivalent of that ice machine. Your attention to detail… or lack of attention… sends a message.

How does your car look inside? What do your clients see when you take them to lunch? What do your managers see when you take them on a call? You may or may not be able to afford a luxury car — but whatever you drive, you can keep it clean.
How are your clothes? Are you dressed like a trusted advisor, or like you’re going to the club? Is your suit clean and pressed? Are your shoes shined?
Have you proofread your LinkedIn profile? A new customer may check you out before your first meeting. Grammatical errors, misspellings, and poor writing can create a bad first impression. Written English matters.

On the wall by the door of a Syracuse HVAC contractor’s office is a large mirror. Directly above the mirror is a sign:

Would you buy from this person?

The salespeople walk by this mirror on the way to their cars every day. The owner told me that two or three times a week he sees one of them stop, look in the mirror, and go back to their desk to fix something.

The things your customers see willeither support or sabotage your efforts. In sales, it pays to sweat the small stuff.

Is Your Voice Mail Greeting Costing You Sales?

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when people didn’t give out their cell phone numbers.

bad voice mail messages cost sales — photo by nandyphotos/adobe stock

Those days are over: these days, email signatures and business cards only have cell numbers on them. I’ve encountered (and have written about in the past) account executives who don’t even check their landline voicemail anymore.

If you have only your cell number on your cards and email signature, it’s official – you want customers to call you on your cell phone. So let me ask you this:

Have you ever called your own cell phone?

Take a moment to borrow a phone and call your own right now. Whatever you hear when your voicemail picks up is what your clients hear.

Is it just a series of numbers?

Way too often, this is what I hear when I call an account executive (and sometimes a sales manager): a robotic voice that says something like, “You’ve reached five… oh… three… eight… one… nine… eight… oh… three… three. The person you are calling is not available. Please leave a message after the tone.”

If that’s what your clients hear, your cell phone is costing you money well beyond your monthly bill.

Your customers have no idea if they’ve called the right number! Are they leaving a message for you, or somebody else at a completely different business?

Faced with that uncertainty, some of them will hang up without saying anything. Their next call may be to your competition.

If you want your customers to call you on that cell phone, take a moment to record a personal greeting. It doesn’t have to be fancy – just give your name, and the name of your company, and ask callers to leave a message. They know how to do the rest.

Sometimes the greeting is fine, but there’s another issue: If you don’t regularly clean out your messages, the robotic voice comes on and says, “The voice mailbox is full and cannot accept messages right now. Please call again later.”

Unless they really want to talk to you, they won’t call again later. They are disgruntled, and are likely to take their business elsewhere in search of gruntling.

Call your cell phone, listen to the greeting, and try to leave a message. It doesn’t hurt to pretend to be your own customer every once in a while.

They Won’t Buy What They Don’t Want

How do you sell ice to an Eskimo?

Sales Tip: You can't sell ice to an eskimo — Photo by hakat

The answer: you don’t.

Early in my radio sales career, I met with a window dealer who was actually interested in talking to me about advertising. This was a rarity at the time.

The conversation, as I recall, took place in November.

I asked him when his busy and slow seasons were. He said,

I’ve got one absolutely dead month every year — January. Sometimes I think we should just close the shop down then. It’s too cold and rainy, nobody’s thinking about their windows, and nobody wants a big hole cut in their house during the rainy season. They don’t even want to talk about it.

If you can get people to call us in January, I’ll be your customer for a long time.

That got me excited. I didn’t have a whole lot of customers, and definitely needed the January billing. He was willing to spend $5,000 for a one-month trial.

I got to work.

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I got the shop owner to agree to a January installation discount. I convinced our sales manager to agree to our lowest rates and a bunch of bonus spots on KEX, a station that’s perfect for window dealers. I wrote and re-wrote the script until it was brilliant.

We launched the campaign on the first Monday in January. Nobody called that week.

Nobody called during the second week.

Two people called during the third week, but neither of them bought anything.

One person called during the fourth week. He didn’t buy, either.

For $5,000, the window dealer got three phone calls and no sales. At the end of the month the owner thanked me for my efforts, paid the bill, and told me that radio just didn’t work. He wasn’t interested in renewing.

Nobody wanted a hole cut into their house in January. They didn’t even want to talk about it.

Lesson learned.

This sort of thing is pretty common with business owners. They hope that if they just find the right advertising venue, they can convince someone who’s not interested to be interested.

[shareable]Sales tip: People buy when they want to buy — not when you want to sell.[/shareable]

If they’re not interested, advertising won’t make them interested.

A credit union, whose membership was primarily over 50, launched a campaign aimed at millennials. When these smartphone-happy prospects learned that the credit union didn’t have a mobile app, their enthusiasm cooled quickly.
An aesthetic medicine clinic, whose practice was 89% women, decided to go after men. They learned that men were much less likely to respond to a Botox or laser hair removal message.
A restaurant whose slowest night of the week was Monday put all of its advertising money toward a campaign to drive Monday business. They found out that their customers, as a group, just didn’t want to eat out on Monday.

I remembered the lesson of the window dealer when I met recently with the Marketing Director for a chain of candy stores in the Midwest. She told me that her “selling season” started in late September as Halloween approached, and continued through the end of March.

“After Easter,” she said, “our business drops like a stone.”

When we got back to the television station, the Account Executive suggested a big “summer sale” promotion — he needed some May and June billing. I told him to wait.

“We could probably talk her into it,” I told him. “But this is her first experience with your station. She’s testing you. If people don’t want candy in the summer, your promotion’s going to bomb. You may never get her back on the air.”

We’re starting the campaign in September, when people start thinking about candy.

Don’t try to advertise ice to Eskimos. Find people who want the ice.