Watching a movie with my son the other night the main character announced that his company had “never fired anyone”. He went on to explain that “because of this they had loyal hard workers as they were secure in their positions and future”. While this is obvious fiction it does make one wonder. Where does company loyalty really come from?
Asking employees to become a company evangelist is at an all time high. Businesses are not only expecting this of their leaders but now they expect it from all. Everyone… from the front receptionist to the part time warehouse worker. From engineering, accounting, sales, and operations. Is that fair? Is that even possible?
Just Business… Nothing Personal… Of course business is personal. The concept that somehow when we call something “business” the personal touch to the end user and/or potential customer becomes less important is just wrong. I don’t care if you’re the owner of a small “mom and pop” organization or the CEO of a global conglomerate all business is personal or at least it should be.
No matter how great an organization is there are always customer issues. It could be a misunderstanding, personality conflict, a service level issue, or simply customer remorse. Many times all of these at once. As the original relationship builder, the sales professional needs to be able to work with customer issues or as I like to fondly call them, customer heat.