What’s Your Customer GPA?
It might have been a while since you got a report card, but what do your midterm grades look like?
Here's a little homework assignment for you:
Go through your customer list (i.e. everyone who buys something from you on a recurring basis) and ask yourself this question...
Why do they buy from me?
Calculate Your Customer GPA
Give each customer the letter grade associated with each response below. You may meet more than one category, and if so, go with the grade associated with the highest one.
**It's important here to be brutally honest. This is a self-assessment, and there's no one to impress.
(A) They buy from me because I am a resource and provide strategic business insight
(B) They buy from me because they know/like/trust me, and I'm easy to work with
(C) They buy from me because we have the latest technology and offer features/benefits that no one else does
(D) They buy from me because we're the biggest and safest name in the sector
(E) They buy from me because we have the lowest price
Just like school, you get four points for an A, three for a B, two for a C, one for a D, and none for an E. Add up your total score, divide by the number of customers, and voilà! You've just determined your Customer GPA. Did you make the Dean's List this semester?
Get Better Grades
If you're honest, you probably have some work to do, and your GPA can definitely be higher than it is right now. The good news is that it's easier to take a B customer to an A than it is to take a D customer to a C. Those B customers will give you their attention, and you have good credibility with them.
The bad news is that you're probably getting more C's and D's than A's and B's. Technology comes and goes. Unique features and benefits are sexy, but only for a short period of time. The "safe" 800-pound gorillas in the marketplace are being disrupted every day. The sales stories you're able to tell based on those concepts are fleeting at best. If the way you lose business is the same way you got it, then prepare for churn.
It's not that you aren't a good student. You likely don't have the right "study habits," and by that, I mean routines around prospecting and the sales process. Those can be improved with a little time and some dedicated effort.
Does this remind you of college? It sure does for me. I did rather poorly on my first Human Anatomy lab quiz freshman year. It was kind of a big deal that I did well in this course. This was my career I was preparing for, and a C- wasn't going to cut it.
The thing is, I thought I understood all of the concepts and was doing well until I got punched in the face with results. Sometimes you have to take a hard look at things to realize what's really going on, and I think this little self-examination will do that for you.
Two More Questions and a Challenge
1. When is the last time you asked your customers why they buy from you?
2. What would it mean for your career to raise that GPA by half a point?
I'm challenging (daring?) you to not bring on anything less than a B customer from here on out. You'd never bomb a class to tank your GPA, would you?
Jeff Bajorek
Real. Authentic. Experience.
There’s a big difference between knowing how to sell and being able to. Jeff Bajorek spent over a decade in the field as a top performer. He’s been in your shoes. He knows what it will take. He can help you succeed.
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