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Systems & Processes

7 Costly Mistakes In Your Sales Process

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In a business, your sales process is one of the key structures that determines your revenue growth. It’s a proven series of repeatable steps from start to finish, outlining the closing of a deal.

Unfortunately, many business owners don’t have a proven sales process. In fact, ⅔ salespeople don’t follow a proven sales process when doing business. They use spur of the moment strategies to try to close deals, which never works well. 

If you don’t plan for success, you’ll never achieve it. Companies that have a proven sales process outperform those that don’t, and having a proven sales process will help in closing more deals and securing more customers. If your sales aren’t doing so well and you’re looking to change things up, here are 7 Costly Mistakes to avoid in your sales process.

1. You Use Old Traditional Methods

The old methods of doing sales involve talking to a prospect, telling them the benefits of your product and then following up with them if they aren’t ready to buy. If you’ve ever tried this approach, you would soon discover it doesn’t work very well.

sales process

As time goes on everything evolves. Your old proven sales process may have worked before, but in today’s time it is now obsolete and replaced by newer strategies and methods. Customers can smell a salesman from a mile away, and if they feel they are being sold to, will quickly back off and go somewhere else.

Your prospects are getting smarter every year, as they encounter more and more salespeople every single day. They’ve been exposed to dozens of different marketing and sales techniques, and know them well. If you’re trying the same old tricks to get them to buy, they’ll know it immediately.

“The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.” – David Ogilvy

The customer is not a moron. She's your wife. Share on X

2. You Have Salespeople, Not Closers

There are two kinds of people in sales: Salespeople and closers.

Salespeople are concerned only with getting the sale. To salespeople, they only succeed when the customer buys. And in order to make that happen, they’ll use every trick in the book. 

However, your customer has been sold to so many times they know exactly what you are doing. If you try to use aggressive selling tactics or push them into buying something they aren’t ready to buy, you’ve just lost a potential customer.

Closers are like salespeople, except they don’t try to sell anything. Instead of doing what every other salesperson in the market does, the closer simply does two things: Ask questions and listens.

sales process

By asking deep questions and listening carefully, a closer is able to lead the conversation and the prospect to a close. Closers are in no rush to make a sale, and understand that if a prospect isn’t ready to buy now, they might do so in a few weeks. By not trying to push a sale, they leave an opportunity open for future business.

3. Unsure Of Your Desired Customer

Do you know what your optimal customer is like? Their needs, desires, objections, fears and worries?

Your desired customer is the type of customer you are targeting. In today’s world, people are bombarded 24/7 with advertisements, marketing tactics and commercials. Especially with the rise of technology and social media sites like Facebook, they see an ad every single day.

If your ad does not cater to their demographic specifically, it will be ignored. A banner targeting ‘pet owners’ will perform much worse than a banner that specifically targets ‘cat lovers’. Get very specific on who your customer is, and know them inside and out. That way, you’ll be able to handle any objections they have before they even open their mouth.

4. Your Leads Are Cold, Not Warm

Cold leads are every salesperson’s nightmare. Picking up the phone to dial a number to someone who’s never heard of you is going to frustrate both you and the person you are calling. 

Warm leads on the other hand, are people who have already shown interest in your product or service. These people are much more likely to be more receptive towards your advances, as they are expecting it. Research shows that cold leads only have a 1-3% success rate. With warm leads, this number jumps up to 40%.

Instead of calling a stranger and interrupting their day, have them contact you instead. Remember that if you are calling them, you are a salesperson. But if they are calling you, you are the authority figure.

5. Neediness

If you are too eager to close a sale, your prospect can smell it. Neediness is one of the biggest turn offs to a prospect in business. It implies that you are desperate to make the sale, and will influence you to use pushy tactics in order to do so. 

Neediness comes from not knowing your own value. During a prospect interaction, you want to be qualifying the prospect, not the other way around. You should be trying to find out if they can afford your services and if they’d be a good fit to work with. If all you think about is closing the sale, you might just get it – and end up with a difficult client.

When it comes to closing deals, have the mindset that it’s okay to walk away. You don’t have to close every single person you meet.

Have the mindset to walk away from a deal. It's okay to say no to a bad fit. Share on X

6. Spending Too Much Time On Trivial Tasks

You make money when you close. And to close a deal, you need to use that time to be selling. The problem is that most sales teams are spending too much time on tasks other than selling.

Things like data entry, sending emails and making phone calls (especially cold calls), take up valuable time. Instead of wasting time on these trivial tasks, delegate the task or better – automate it. Invest in software that automates these tasks, freeing up your time to sell and generate revenue. The amount of time saved that can be used to interact with prospects and build relationships far outweighs the investment required. Leverage time as your most important asset, as money can always be made back.

7. No Commitment And Poor Closing Ability

“I need some time to think about it.”

“Okay sure, when you’ve thought about it please get back to me.”

How many times has a prospect said this?

99% of the time when a prospect says they want to think about it they are saying no. They just don’t want to hurt your feelings, and instead say they need some time. 

Think about it like this: If I offered you a million dollars right now, what would you say? Most likely you would respond with HELL YES! Could you imagine someone saying “I’ll think about your offer”? It makes no sense. If your prospect is truly interested in what you have to offer, there should be no hesitation. If they are hesitating, either you as a salesperson are not selling the product well enough or the prospect is not interested.

In fact, poor closing ability is one of the biggest reasons why sales are lost. 12% of salespeople are excellent, 23% are good, 38% are average, and 27% are poor. Every sale that is lost amounts to thousands in lost revenue a month, hundreds of thousands a year, and millions over a prolonged duration. Your proven sales process may bring results, but if your salespeople don’t know how to close, it is useless.

sales process

In the rare situation that a prospect truly needs time to discuss it with a business partner, you can ask them if it’s okay to follow up in a few days time. Set the date and time, to let them know you are expecting them to make their decision by then. By making your prospect give you a commitment, they are much more likely to follow through instead of wasting your time.

The One Thing Business Owners Lack In Their Sales Process

Business owners focus too much on their sales process. If they aren’t making enough revenue, they look to bring in more leads. If prospects aren’t willing to buy, they offer incentives like discounts and special deals. Some even go so far as to completely redo their entire sales process from start to end. 

They focus all their time on these things, but forget the most important rule of sales. In sales it’s all about closing. Instead of trying to bring in more leads, increase your closing ratio. The more deals you close, the more revenue you bring in. The more revenue there is, the faster your business can grow. And the more your business grows, the more freedom you have to expand on things and try out new strategies. 

Most business owners don’t realize it’s their sales teams ability to close that affects the sales process. They think the process needs to be changed, when in reality it’s all about the salesperson. Your sales team should be closing a majority of the deals they do – if they aren’t they need help.

Be a High Ticket Closer, Not A Salesperson

If you are unsatisfied with your sales team’s closing ratio, focus on being a closer instead of acting as a salesperson.

A closer does not sell. Instead, they lead the conversation in a way to get the prospect to close themselves. They do this by doing 4 things:

1) They find out your needs

They do this by asking questions and finding out what you’re looking for. This is known as pre-qualifying, to see if you and your prospect would be a good fit.

2 They find out your problems

The second thing closers do, is identify problems. For example, if you are selling B2B lead generation services, you want to find out how their leads are currently doing. Are they bringing in enough leads? Do they need warmer leads? Are they targeting the right people? Closers find out their problems so they know what to focus on.

3) They paint a picture

Once you find out their needs and problems, you paint a picture. “Could you see how X service could help you bring in more leads?” “How would warm leads help you with your closing ratio?” By painting a picture for them to imagine, you are allowing them to visualize the outcome of what would happen if they were to work with you, leading them closer to where you want them to be.

4) They close the deal

You know their needs. You’ve identified their problems. And you’ve shown them how your product or service can help.

If your prospect is truly interested, at this point they should already be ready to buy. There’s only one thing left to do: Close the deal. This is done by asking them one simple question.

And this question, is one that many inexperienced salespeople mess up – resulting in the entire conversation going nowhere. That’s why over the years, I’ve put together something called ‘The Perfect Closing Script’, that outlines the entire sales process and what to say from beginning to end. Forget old school sales techniques, hard selling and proving to the prospect why you are the best choice. The Perfect Closing Script turns the tables and makes the prospect do the talking – they give you the answers to their own questions. If you want to know more about the Perfect Closing Script, click here to learn more now.

How To Reduce Customer Churn and Get More People To Care About Your Business

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Customer churn is one of the biggest influences that causes businesses to stagger in growth or outright go bankrupt.

Without customers a business cannot survive. And the problem is that more and more business owners are focusing on their bottom life instead of an old age saying that is true even to this day:

The customer is king.

What Causes Customer Churn?

Customer churn occurs when a business does not value their customers. This is a common problem among businesses that have employees. The owner may do everything in their power to ensure customer satisfaction, but their employees may not feel the same way.

They may hate their job or be overwhelmed by stress and project their emotions onto the customer. As a result, customer service and overall experience goes down, making customers feel unappreciated and motivated to go somewhere else. Overtime, through repeated negative experiences the customer becomes fed up. And when the time comes that they are presented with an experience that treats them much better, they will happily accept it as their new go to service provider.     

Customers no longer base their loyalty on price or product. Instead, they stay loyal with companies due to the experience they receive. If you cannot keep up with their increasing demands, your customers will leave you.

Customers no longer base their loyalty on price or product - they base it on the experience they receive Share on X

Understanding Your Customers

In order to avoid customer churn and retention issues, the simplest and most effective way is to place yourself in your customer’s shoes. The interesting part is, you are already doing it.

When you visit shops, stores, and are provided with customer service, how do you feel? You and your customer are both human beings – and the experiences you have with the employees you interact with tell you how other customers feel as well. The same goes for your business – to identify and solve inconsistencies that are causing customers to go somewhere else, go through the process yourself.

Have your own employees serve you. Take note of the entire experience – how do they make you feel? Do you feel rushed and ignored? Are they attentive to your needs? Do they go above and beyond to ensure your satisfaction?

The easiest way to know what the customer wants, is to go through it yourself. After all, you are a customer as well, and how you feel is a good indicator of how your customer will feel as well.

The simplest way to know how the customer feels is to go through it yourself. Share on X

Making Customers Feel Like Royalty

Your customers are the lifeline of your business. They provide you with revenue, repeated business year after year, and either recommend you to their friends and family, or inform them to stay away. Taking care of your customers should be the most important priority if you want to avoid customer churn.

In Japan, they take this concept of customer satisfaction extremely seriously. They have a saying called Okyakusama wa kamisamadesu – which translates to “The Customer is God”. Forget being treated like royalty – the Japanese take it to a whole new level, literally worshipping their customers as someone they cannot bear to live without. Which in business is very true, because without them you would have no business.

Understanding your customers is the first step to making them feel like royalty (or omni-potent beings). Every human being has a desire to be understood and accepted, and if you are able to demonstrate that kind of care and compassion for your customers, they will feel exhilarated from the amount of attention being provided to them.

When your customers feel you understand and care for them – something that your competitors may slack out on, you’ll gain their trust and loyalty. That results in more and more business overtime, to allow your business to grow and thrive.

How High Ticket Closers Create Genuine Customer Loyalty

To create the same kind of customer service that makes customers revere you as their dream service provider, think of every interaction in your business process as an opportunity. In sales, this is known as being a high ticket closer.

The difference between a salesperson and a high ticket closer, is in their approach. A salesperson is concerned with closing the deal, and getting the customer to buy something. They may use pushy or aggressive sales tactics to get this result, and in the process make the customer feel turned off and unwilling to return. This increases customer churn.

A high ticket closer however, is in no rush to get the sale. They focus more on customer interaction and building a solid connection with them, because they are aware that genuine customer relationships pay off much more in the long term. A high ticket closer asks questions to understand the customer on a deep level, and uses that mutual understanding to make the customer trust and like them. High ticket closers know that a customer that knows, likes and trusts them, is much more likely to buy than someone who doesn’t.

The 3 Long Term Benefits Of High Ticket Closing 

Because customers buy from people they know, like and trust, being that kind of person has many long term benefits. 

The first way is that they are more likely to buy from you over everyone else, which increases your sales and revenue.

The second way is that loyal customers are going to keep coming back to you year after year, because of how you make them feel. They are going to recommend their friends and family to do business with you, because of the excellent service you provide. This compounds on itself, bringing you more and more business overtime and growing your base of loyal customers.

The third way is that you will never have to sell again. There is no customer churn, because your customers are loyal and like you – they already want to do business with you. When the time comes that you have a new product or service to offer, you already have a list of customers who are willing to buy from you. You don’t need to spend time doing cold calls, using hard sell sales tactics or even trying to persuade them into doing anything – they are already interested in what you have to offer and willing to buy.

Customers buy from people they know, like, and trust. Share on X

Why High Ticket Closing Is Not For Everyone

Unfortunately, this way of doing business is not cut out for everyone. As high ticket closing is more focused on creating relationships, using influence to close deals and developing genuine customer loyalty, there is a bit more work involved.

In order to be someone that people know, like and trust, you need to develop the kind of skills that make people flock to you. This means taking the time to improve your communication abilities such as speaking, storytelling and listening in order to establish trust at the highest level. In the world of business, this is known as personal development.

Personal development is a lifelong process that never ends. Humans are capable of much more than they think they can do, which is why most people fall short of their abilities. They think that investing in themselves to become the best version of themselves takes too much time, and would much rather settle to be a mediocre version of who they truly are. Some examples of this are are people saying things like:

“I was born this way.”

“I’m too old to learn anything new.”

“That takes too much time. I’d rather enjoy life”

“I’m lazy”

As a result, many people live below their means and never truly realize their fullest potential. They never discover what they could become, and instead opt to make excuses to make up for their shortcomings. 

Why Successful People Never Stop

The opposite kind of person, is someone who never stops. These kind of people never give up, who take every single day as an opportunity to improve their life, skills, abilities and mindset in order to become the best version they possibly are. 

They have the mindset that anything is possible as long as they are willing to put in the work to make it happen – and often do. As Steve Jobs said, “The people who think they are crazy enough to change the world, are often the ones who do.” 

They don’t make excuses for their shortcomings, and instead find ways to overcome them. Instead, they turn their weaknesses into strengths, and use them to enhance their life, business and relationships. As a result, they are able to experience everything life has to offer.

That is the mentality of a high ticket closer – someone who never stops trying to make themselves better in any way possible. They are constantly learning new skills, trying new things, and getting out of their comfort zone. They understand that it is the only way to develop the skills and habits that make other people gravitate towards them. As a result, people find themselves naturally drawn to these kind of people, without knowing why. Often the reason is because of all the work this person does behind the scenes, to get them to where they are.

HTC Platinum – A Long Term Business Strategy

That is why our newest program, HTC Platinum reflects this. In order to accommodate for the philosophies that create highly successful individuals that are able to build trust and loyalty with people, HTC Platinum embodies these principles into it’s training’s.

Applicants are taken through a rigorous 7 week program that teaches them the fundamentals of business acumen, B2B sales, inbound and outbound sales techniques and closing ultra high ticket deals. They receive a holistic, synergistic, and foundational training to become a well-rounded person, leader, salesperson, business owner and closer, with an additional 4 weeks of valuable B2B content afterwards.

Inside our community, members are given special access to trainings that help them develop their leadership skills, personal coaching at the highest caliber, as well as group classes to hold themselves accountable to ensure success. Additional resources include productivity sheets and goal and progress tracking to ensure every member is performing at their peak level, to turn them into the type of people who possess the skills and abilities to secure deals and business agreements that set themselves up for life – such as celebrities and public figures.

Bonuses also include priority access to the “Discord Batline” – an exclusive communication platform that allows them to connect with the internal members on Team Dan Lok.

Implement High Ticket Closing In Your Business

High ticket closers use their skills and abilities to create trust and loyalty with customers. They reduce customer churn and make customers more likely to do business with them year after year. Customers also recommend them to their friends and family – resulting in more repeat business over the years. This increases customer retention, and increases their overall experience to influence them to choose you over the competition.

If you are ready to implement high ticket closing into your business, relationships and life, click here to watch the video now.

10 Common Mistakes That Business Owners Make When Scaling

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There are many common mistakes that small business owners can make when their business starts growing.

Because when things are looking good, business is taking off and the revenue is coming in steadily every month, you’re going to be tempted to start expanding.

But if you’ve never scaled a business before you may be wondering just what you need to take into consideration, or you’ll risk finding out the hard way when everything begins to crumble.

If you’re a small business owner and you’re ready to start scaling, here’s 10 Common Mistakes Business Owners make, and how you can avoid them.

1. Not planning ahead

Most people – not just business owners, fail to plan in life. They take things as they come, and live in the moment.

In business, this is one of the quickest ways to go bankrupt and one of the greatest mistakes business owners make. Things around you are constantly changing, events around the world impact how business will go and it’s your responsibility as the captain to steer your ship in the right direction.

You need to constantly be planning ahead, looking out for anything that is a potential danger to your business. Are there rumors that a recession is about to hit? Is the President making some poor choices that may impact the cost of your goods? These are all factors you need to put into consideration, so you can anticipate and ready yourself for the approaching storm that may be coming.

2. No Goals, No Commitment

You cannot hit a target you cannot see. And when you’re aiming in the dark and firing wildly, you are going to miss your target 99% of the time. 

Without a clear goal in mind, you will not have the motivation to continuously improve your business. You will drift along, taking things as they come and hoping for the best. And eventually, your business will fail because you aren’t putting in the time, energy and focus into helping it grow. 

Set clear goals and commit to making them happen. Be very specific with your goals, instead of promising something that is generalized. Don’t say “I will improve next month’s revenue”, say “I will increase sales by at least 200% next quarter”. 

Be specific and know where you want to go. You’ll have a much clearer image in mind of how to get there.

3. Ignoring technology

Technology is rapidly growing and changing, making things that were almost impossible before a reality today. As a business owner, if you are not making use of technology in your business, you are falling behind.

Tasks like data entry, generating leads and posting updates on your website are all things that can be done with technology. Technology is a useful tool that can save you countless hours on trivial tasks, giving you the time and freedom to handle what’s important in your business. 

For business owners that are stubborn and refuse to learn how to leverage technology, my advice to them is to adapt and get with the times, before your competition uses it to run you out of business. Don’t have an old school, traditional mindset – one of the deadliest mistakes business owners make.

4. Not investing in marketing

You’re doing well already, why would you need to spend money on marketing?

That’s the mindset of most business owners who are already successful. But what they fail to realize is that they won’t be successful forever. 

If you aren’t bringing in new business, you are going to slowly lag behind the competition. Your competitors are always looking for new ways to get more market share and take away your customers. If you aren’t finding ways to make your customers choose you over everyone else, pretty soon you’ll find them doing exactly that.

Don’t make the same mistake business owners make – thinking they’re ahead when they’re not.

5.‘One Man Business Army’ Syndrome

“I’ve gotten this far all by myself, why would I need anyone else?!”

This is especially true with business owners who have had to endure a lot of tough times. For them, they believe they can handle everything by themselves, because that’s how they got to where they currently are. There’s no need to hire people or create a team – they’ll only add more expenses onto the business.

There is an African proverb:
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.

In business, having a team that you can delegate tasks to is extremely advantageous. Instead of handling everything yourself, you can delegate tasks to your team, which allows you to handle the more important aspects of your business, such as seeking partnerships and negotiating deals.

That’s why you see billion dollar companies like Google and Microsoft with staff from all around the world. They understand that in order to build something great, you need a great team behind you to make it happen.

6. Not Knowing Your Worth

Are you undercutting yourself and you don’t know it? Do you panic when your competition lowers their prices, and you feel inclined to do the same to stay relevant?

When you don’t know your worth, you are going to get pushed around. For example, let’s say you sell soap, and your competitor is having a 20% discount. If a customer walks into your store and complains that your prices are too expensive compared to the competition, someone who doesn’t know their worth will be inclined to match the price.

However, if you have something that you know is valuable, you won’t be afraid to stand your ground. You know your soap is made with organic ingredients that don’t irritate skin the way your competitors does. You also know that there’s no other soap store in the city that offers what you do. And if your customer doesn’t see the value in being able to shower without an itching marathon afterward, that’s on them for not knowing the value of a product.

7. Not Researching Your Market

How well do you know your market? Are you catering to young adults, or are you catering to 18 year old high school graduates, who are looking to enter college but are unsure what path to pursue?

If you aren’t researching your market, you are simply targeting a general demographic. With more and more ads being shown today on social media and popular web browsing sites like Youtube, if your offer does not stand out from the rest, your product will be ignored along with the other countless distractions your customers encounter every single day.

Get very specific with who you are targeting, and know your market inside and out. When you know them that well, you will know how to cater your product perfectly to their desires.

8. Spending Way Too Much Money

Your business is doing well and you’ve got a bit of extra cash at the end of every month. Having that money just sit around doing nothing doesn’t help… so you make a few purchases to help with your future scaling: New software, doubling your ad spend, automated sliding doors, bathroom sensors and even a newly designed company logo.

But when next month’s projected revenue is much less than what you thought it’d be, now all of a sudden you find yourself in debt, surrounded by unnecessary expensive purchases that you now realize you bought too early.

Spending too much money too quickly on unnecessary things can turn your business profits into additional business expenses that have no use or reason for being there as you are not in a position to utilize them yet. If you find yourself tempted to spend money on additional features for your business, ask yourself if it’s going to be used immediately to grow your business, or if you can wait a bit longer before it is needed.

9. Spending Way Too Little Money

Spending too little money can also be a problem.

For example, if business picks up, customers are pouring in but you only have two employees on the floor, you are going to have a problem. Your staff are going to be overwhelmed and overworked, and your customers are going to get agitated at the long wait times and lack of customer service.

In this scenario, the mistake this business owner is making is being hesitant on hiring additional employees. By hiring extra employees, you can process customer requests faster, allowing more of them to be serviced and as a result increase the amount of sales that are made.

You should always be looking for ways to invest money into your business to help it thrive and grow even faster. Just make sure it’s a smart investment.

10. Having a bad team

A bad team is worse than no team. If you are not carefully selecting who you’re bringing on board, you could be closer to failure than you know it. Having a bad team harms your business reputation, and destroys it from the inside out. 

If you are going to bring people on board, you need to think about what this person is like. Find out their mindset, their goals, beliefs, their ethics, morals and if they align with yours and the business. 

For example I know in many companies when they hire salespeople, they look only at how much revenue their sales team can generate for them. They don’t look at things such as their integrity, or morals. What ends up happening is that the salespeople are able to bring in more revenue as expected, but subsequent quarters their sales go down. 

This is because the salespeople are not properly trained, and resort to pushy sales tactics to get the sale. Instead of building a long term relationship with the customer, they go for “one time buys” that make customers lose trust in the company and go somewhere else.

For business owners looking to increase their sales by hiring more salespeople, my advice to them is to make sure you know what kind of salesperson you are bringing onto your team. Learn from the deadly mistakes business owners make, when all they care about is increasing sales.

Summary

When it comes to scaling, there are many mistakes business owners make. Some mistakes have clear implications of what can occur, while others’ mistakes can be hidden and unseen until it’s too late.

For business owners looking for the most effective way to scale, my belief is that they should increase their sales. The more sales they can make, the more revenue is produced and as a result the faster they can scale.

High ticket closing is a skill that allows business owners to scale much more effectively. The ability to connect with people and make them trust you, allows for many more deals to be closed and establishes a relationship with them for potential long term business. 

High Ticket Closing Is Not For Everyone

However, while high ticket closing can be very beneficial to any business owner in any industry, it is not for everyone.

People who do not invest in themselves, who believe that success is paid for and not earned, or gives up easily under pressure is not fit for high ticket closing. Like any skill, high ticket closing must be practiced and mastered for it’s full potential to be seen. If you are someone who would eagerly spend a large amount of money on a new car, but hesitate to spend the same amount on improving your business skills, it may not be for you.

But if you are someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to become successful, that understands hard work eventually pays off in great sums in life and business, then you might be a good fit for our newest high ticket closing program – HTC Platinum.

HTC Platinum provides the same type of community and training that develops great leaders and high performers – the same kind of people that use their newfound skills and influence to become celebrities and secure contracts and prestigious business agreements to set themselves up for life. If you’re ready to get access to business coaching and high-ticket closing to help your business scale at the highest caliber, apply here today.

How To Deal With Angry Customers With These Simple Tips

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If you’ve never been an angry customer, then the person next to you has. That means one out of two people – 56 percent – has gotten angry about a product or service… and if your business is the one they’re upset about, you could lose much more than a customer. 

As a business owner, the big question on your mind is probably, “What makes a customer angry, and how can I deal with them to fix the problem?” You can have policies and procedures for handling angry customers, but that’s just a temporary fix. You want more than that.

It’s like trapping a hungry lion in a cage and throwing meat at it every time it roars. No. What I’m going to show you winds back the clock… before the customer walks into your store, or before you get on the phone with them. We’re going back to when your lion was a purring cub. Let’s prevent the problem before it begins.

First, we’ll take a deep dive into your customer’s mind to get a better understanding of how they think, what they want, and what they desire. Now is that a little bit intrusive? Maybe. But when you offer the service they are looking for, they will thank you for it.  

The Psychology Of An Angry Customer

What Makes People Say, GRRRR!

Let’s start with the surprising facts about anger and what it means for your as a business owner with an angry customer on the phone or in your store.

First, anger is not destructive. It’s actually healthy. Researchers now say it helps optimism, brainstorming, and problem solving. It’s the opposite of fear and anxiety. What does that mean? It means anger stops us from running from our fear, and gets the other person to do what we want.

Psychologists now believe anger is rewarding. You might be thinking, that doesn’t make sense! 

But researchers found “levels of the stress hormone cortisol drop, suggesting that anger helps people calm down and get ready to address a problem—not run from it.”

What does that mean for you as a business owner? Bear with me while we take a detour into some science. In plain English, new research is saying that anger triggers the part of the brain that’s associated with positive, pleasurable behaviors. 

The Benefit of Anger

Researchers found “Brain imaging and electrical studies of the brain consistently show that the left frontal lobe is crucial to establishing approach behaviors that push us to pursue desired goals and rewards in rational, logical, systematic, and ordered ways, and that activation of the right frontal cortex is tied to the more negative, withdrawal motivational system, marked by inhibition, timidity, and avoidance of punishment and threat.

“Brain scans show that anger significantly activates the left anterior cortex, associated with positive approach behaviors.”

So, “If the angry person is successful, it not only produces benefits (“I win!”), but also pleasure—enough to reinforce deploying anger this way repeatedly.” They’re feeling up for the challenge and they don’t want anyone to put them down or make them feel bad when they’re in this “angry” state.

Now, their feeling of “I win!” happiness isn’t your feeling of happiness. You have a customer who is asking for a refund/ deciding not to buy from you/ threatening to go to your competitor. 

Let’s hit the PAUSE button on your angry customer for a moment. You understand what gives them the courage to be angry. Next, let’s look at what you can do to resolve the situation, and what you can say to win them over before the situation escalates.

One strategy is to understand the type of customer you are dealing with. 

Affluent, Difficult, Price based, and Sophisticated Customers

4 Types Of Customers And How To Handle Them

Imagine this scenario. A customer comes into your store, raging about how terrible your service is, and how the discount you gave wasn’t as low as the price your competitor offers. Then they say the dreaded words. I want a refund.

Could you have prevented this moment from happening? You could.

Let’s go back to the day you opened up your store and announced to the world that you’re ready for your first customer. What type of ideal customer would you like to attract? 

There are four types of customers that you could attract to your business. 

Priced based customers

This type of customer is attracted to deals and discounts. They love to chase a good bargain. If you tell them to buy now, and they’ll get three bonuses for an added value of $300, they’ll buy even if they don’t need to because they get $300 in bonuses. 

Now, if you started your relationship with this customer by saying you can give them the discount they want, you’ll get a price-based customer. 

You’ve said the word that attracts them like honey. They’ll become an angry customer if the discount they got wasn’t low enough or if they feel they didn’t get a great bargain.

Starting your relationship with your customer by showing them the value you provide and not giving them a discount can prevent this situation.

Difficult customers

Difficult customers enjoy giving you a hard time no matter what you do. They love to pick a fight with you. They will be the angry customer that won’t be satisfied with your product or service no matter how perfect it is. Avoid doing business with this type of customer.

Sophisticated customers

When a sophisticated customer walks into your store, they’ve already decided what they want to buy. They’ve done their research on your company and your product or service by searching the internet and talking to people they know. 

If you try to push features and benefits on them, or use aggressive sales tactics, they’ll get upset and refuse to buy. Don’t be pushy. Answer any questions they may have and tell them about flaws they should know about, such as your product will not work with certain software. 

Affluent customers

For these customers, money is no object. They buy for emotional reasons, such as how the product makes them feel. If a $300 umbrella makes them happy, they will buy it. They want the best, and they want what’s convenient. Hermes is all about creating an emotional shopping experience for the affluent.

Convenience is important to them, so inconvenience is what will upset or anger these types of buyers. Don’t sell them by asking them to wait while you find the best deals or ask them to fight rush hour traffic to do a clothes fitting. Time is valuable to them.

Avoid these situations by pre-selecting items for the customer before they arrive at the store, or better yet, select what the customer prefers and deliver it to their residence to save them time.

Those are some tips on how to deal with the four types of customers. Understanding what attracts them to buy can prevent some ugly situations. 

Here’s a summary of some telltale signs that you could have a future customer or client that will bring you trouble. Avoid these situations and you’ll reduce your chances of facing an angry customer.

Warning Signs of a Customer or Client From Hell

  • No respect for your time. They are unreasonably late for meetings, or give you only 5 minutes of their time for an important meeting. They call you when they want to and expect an answer right away.
  • Lack of respect for your expertise. They are always checking up on your work or they are control freaks telling you how to do your job. They are always disappointed when you send your work to them and they want you to change things because they are never satisfied. But they can never give you constructive feedback.
  • Don’t want to sign a contract or nitpick every line in the contract. They spend a lot of time focusing on what’s not important and they just want to fight and argue with you all the time. 
  • Desire cheapest provider of services. Before talking about what you do, they are already asking for a discount or a deal. As a client, they want extra work without extra compensation. If you don’t give a discount, they threaten to walk away.
  • Unrealistic expectations about deadlines and want things to be done in a rush. Something that takes months for a result they want done in one month. That sets you up for failure.

Watch this video about clients from hell.

Now remember the customer’s anger that you put on PAUSE? Anger is what allows a customer to challenge you to get their needs answered. You might have prevented that angry moment by identifying the type of customer they are and understanding their needs. You might have avoided working with a customer from hell.

But despite your best efforts to find ideal customers, you still find yourself dealing with an angry customer and no time machine could have prevented this moment. What do you do?

Dealing With Customer Anger

In a perfect world, all interactions with customers would be flawless but that’s not always possible. Hundreds of things could go wrong on any given day. Your website could go down unexpectedly and customers cannot finish an online payment. 

Your customer could be having a problem with your product. It’s not working the way they thought it should, or they are not getting the results they want.

Maybe the customer complained to support but the response time is longer than they expected or they have preconceived expectations about the level of support they expect. 

Their anger may have nothing to do with you… they’re having personal or professional problems, such as a divorce or job loss and an issue with your product used up the last of their remaining patience.

What’s important to remember is that most customers – around 75 percent – just want an apology – but most fail to get one. Companies fear lawsuits if their customer service admits liability. For example, if a customer service agent says, “We meant to fix that” if there was a safety issue.

Making a customer angry can be very costly when you look at these customer service statistics. 

  • Consumers tell twice as many people about poor experiences than positive ones. (White House Office of Consumer Affairs)
  • Resolve a complaint in the customer’s favor and they will do business with you again 70% of the time. (Lee Resources)
  • A typical business hears from 4% of its dissatisfied customers, with 96% not voicing out their complaints, and 91% never coming back. (“Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner)

Angry Customers And Customer Service

Source


What To Say To An Angry Customer

“Hi Scott, this is Steve,” said the voice from the other end of the phone.

“Steve Jobs?” asked the customer.

“Yeah,” Jobs said. “I just wanted to apologize for your incredibly long wait. It’s really nobody’s fault. It’s just one of those things.”

Not every unhappy customer will get a call from the CEO of a company. But there are strategies you can use to calm the anger of a customer who is calling customer service.

Be a good listener. Avoid saying “I understand.” You may think it makes you sound empathetic but it will frustrate them. Listen when they explain the problem and take notes during the phone call. 

If you repeat back what they say in their own words, they will feel like you’ve heard them because you’re speaking in their language. Check that you understand what is going on. Don’t promise a solution, but listen and ask questions about what they need.

Customer: “I’m frustrated because we have a limited budget and you’re unwilling to offer us a discount.”

Customer Success Manager: “So, what I’m hearing is that our pricing is a barrier for your business. Your budget is tight, and I’m not offering a discount that meets your needs. Is that correct?”

Ask Questions

Ask open ended questions. Open ended questions give you more information than closed questions. Closed questions ask for yes/no answers. For example, “Have you called customer service about this before?” is a close ended question.

Customer service: “How can I help you feel comfortable enough to move forward?”

Get as much information as possible. Don’t assume what the customer should already know, such as reading a policy. Ask the customer to tell you about what happened in their own words and don’t interrupt them when they speak. If they say something important, take notes so you don’t forget when it’s your chance to speak again.

Customer service: “Can you give me a brief summary of the issue you’re having?”

Take ownership of the situation and explain what you will do to resolve the customer’s issue.

Customer service: “I’ll send those notes in a follow-up email along with my contact information. Let me know if I missed anything, and please don’t hesitate to contact me directly with any other issues.”

Another option is to give the customer some choices and ask which one they prefer.

Customer service: “I have a few ways we can make this better for you. Let’s go through some options together, and you can tell me what you think.”

Set the Tone

Remember. You set the tone for the interaction, so no matter how angry the customer becomes, don’t take the situation personally. The closers on my sales team are taught to stay unattached to the sales call because the prospect or customer is the one with the problem and it’s our goal to solve their problem as best we can.

Maybe the customer is having a bad day and they become angry. My closers stay calm and in control and will call out the prospect on their attitude. Depending on the rapport they have with the prospect, and the personality of the prospect, they may even ask, “Are you always this rude?”

The expected answer is “No.” We hope that our prospect is normally a calm and peaceful person and they were just having an explosive moment. If the prospect is a Difficult Customer looking for a verbal battle, we don’t want to do business with them anyway.

But if they say, “No, I’m not usually this angry, but…” Ask questions, and find out what’s really going on. Did you hit a sensitive spot when you were asking questions to get to the bottom of what was making them angry?

When you have an angry customer, stay calm and in control. Ask questions to get information and find out what’s really going on. If they are angry, look for the real cause. Maybe they are upset that the product is not working. But the real reason they are angry is they’ve bought a product like this before, and it didn’t work either.

When you find the source of the problem, suggest a solution and follow up with the customer.

Summary

An angry customer can damage your business. People will avoid businesses with negative reviews, and customers with a negative experience aren’t likely to return.

Understanding the type of customer you want to attract for your business is one way to avoid angry customers. For example, don’t offer discounts if you want to work with clients that pay premium prices. Look for warning signs that a customer will be a difficult customer.

The way you deal with an angry customer will affect the outcome. Listen to what your customer says is the problem and ask open-ended questions. Watch the tone you use and offer a solution and follow up with the solution.

 

Want to get your hands on a closing script that will get you more sales and close more deals? Find out why old sales techniques aren’t working and new techniques that are giving businesses the competitive advantage.

 

Words of Wisdom From a Self-Made Billionaire

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A billionaire once said to me, “Dan, if your goal is to make a billion dollars, chances are, you’ll never make a billion dollars.”

Those were his words of wisdom, which were discouraging and confusing at the same time. What was he really trying to tell me? That I was going to fail?

I was hungry for answers from the local billionaire who was sitting next to me. He’d made a fortune in the real estate and financing business, and I wanted a role model. I was a young guy at the time and we were at the Vancouver Club. The people at this exclusive club are shareholder and families of generational wealth, so I didn’t feel like I belonged.

As one of the youngest members of the Vancouver Club, I found it was a fascinating place to meet a lot of powerful and influential leaders.

I met real estate developers, powerful politicians, tycoons, and tech entrepreneurs. The place was a gold mine of possible business mentors for someone like me who was still struggling to achieve my dreams.

I felt very privileged to have the chance to sit with this successful billionaire and learn from him. I asked him, “How does one become a billionaire like you? What advice do you have for a young man like me who is building my companies? If you were to do it all over again, what would you do differently?”

The advice he gave me wasn’t just about money or how to make it. Surprisingly, he told me that if I just focused on the money, I wasn’t going to get as far. Here is what he shared with me about how to reach his level of success in business and in life.

Watch this video for words of wisdom from a billionaire.

 

Don’t Set Out To Be A Millionaire Or Billionaire

Now before you start wondering if he was telling me to stop focusing on money, let me share what he said. It wasn’t what I expected.

He told me, “You know what, Dan, at first, that wasn’t my goal. I didn’t set out to be a billionaire and put that on my goal list or anything like that. Now when I was young, I had a wife and kids, and all I wanted to do was provide a nice environment for them. I wanted to provide a good education for my kids. I wanted a nice home for them to grow up in.”

He also wanted to become a millionaire. He worked hard at it and eventually, he hit a million dollars.

But he realized nothing changes that much. He still went to work. He still ate the same breakfast and he still provided for his wife and kids. The difference was, his house was now a nice house and he had a couple cars. Life was good.

But he realized that didn’t fulfil him. That old life didn’t get him excited anymore. He realized that being a millionaire wasn’t the end goal.

Grow Your Business One Step At A Time

At the time, he had good employees that he treated like family. He got to know their spouse, their kids, and before you knew it, they were a pretty big company with 100 employees. But to expand the business, he needed to acquire another company.

So that’s what he did – he expanded and then he had two companies. So I asked him how he managed all these different companies.

He said it was like having a baby – you just have one at a time. You acquire a company, and then you let it grow. Step by step, you help it, nurture it, and grow it. And then you have another company, and you nurture it and grow it.

After decades of doing that, he ended up with tens of thousands of employees and this group of companies.

Then I asked him, “How do I grow my business the way you did?”

He had grown his fortune one company at a time, but the key is he didn’t focus on the money. He didn’t focus on making a billion dollars. What he said was, “If your goal is to make a billion dollars, chances are, you’re not going to make a billion dollars.”

I asked him what he meant by that. Wasn’t the purpose of growing companies to make a billion dollars?

Love What You Do, Value Your Customers

He said, “If you love what you do, and you love your customers, your people, and your team, and you’re willing to make a difference and establish a reputation of being fair in business dealings and working with people…people will want to come back to you and do business with you.”

It’s easier to do business when people come to you, instead of you chasing them. You want people to come to you because you have a good reputation. You want to show them you care about them.

So people – your customers and your team – are what will get you to your goal of becoming a millionaire or billionaire. You can’t just focus on the money goal. You need to love the people who are your customers and your team so they will want to come back to you.

I took the advice of that billionaire and I’ve grown my organization to a global level. If a young guy were to sit down with me and ask the same questions I did as a young man, I would give him the same advice on how to become rich.

If you are interested in more advice from successful entrepreneurs, tune in to my podcast called The Dan Lok Show. Every single week, I interview successful entrepreneurs, heavy hitters, millionaires and billionaires, to bring you their wisdom and insights.

 

Jack Ma’s Top 9 Rules For Success | Why You Should Listen To Your Customers

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Photo credits: Frederic Legrand – COMEO / Shutterstock.com and feelphoto / Shutterstock.com

Remember the gut wrenching heartache you felt the moment you realized you gave up on your goal too soon? That if you’d persisted, you would have reached success?

I know the feeling. It’s like the analogy where you’ve been drilling for oil for several months. You’re tired and disappointed, so you give up. But if you had just kept going for one more hour, you would have struck it rich.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba and now billionaire, always believed that today is hard, but giving up is not the answer. “If you give up tomorrow, you will never see the sunshine.” Those are wise words that apply to life in general, but especially true in business if you want to be successful with your customers.

I don’t follow too many other entrepreneurs, but Jack Ma is definitely one of a handful that I look up to because of how much his wisdom resonates with me. I have probably read every single book written by or about Jack Ma.

Maybe it’s his poor, English teacher background – I’ve always found him to be very compelling and persuasive. He’s also a very articulate public speaker and visionary. As a global educator, I can relate to his teacher’s heart.

Success is not easy to achieve, and both Jack Ma and I have been down that road to prove it. We can’t make your journey any shorter or any less difficult, but we can share Jack Ma’s nine rules of success to give you an advantage in business and in life.

Watch this video about Jack Ma’s nine rules of success.

1. Think Outside The Box

Let’s start with how people like to perceive you. They like to label you. So if you don’t make sense to them, they think you’re crazy.

When I was younger, people thought I was crazy because of my outside-of-the-box thinking and teaching style. People thought of Jack the same way when he came up with Alipay, an online payment platform.

When you don’t make sense to others, you’re a lunatic, but when you’re successful, they give you a different name. They call you eccentric and innovative because when you’re successful, all your ideas are validated.

Jack believes that being crazy is good. Why? Because Jack says that, “If everyone agrees with me and if everybody believes in our idea is good – we will have no chance.”

You wouldn’t be the one standing out from the crowd. If everyone thought the same way, you would all blend in together and succeed and fail together.

So what can you do to stand out and be innovative and be a little crazy? Jack teaches us to “Focus on the user.” As long as you’re focusing on the customer and they love what you’re doing, that’s all that matters.

2. Seek Opportunities Before Anyone Else

When it comes to opportunities, I do believe they are everywhere.

As an entrepreneur, we create our own opportunities but to be a good entrepreneur and visionary, you must see the opportunities before anyone else. You don’t want your competitors to see your vision.

I’m talking about the Blue Ocean. In business, you’ve found a Blue Ocean when you don’t have competitors and you’re the only one offering what you offer in your market.

When Jack Ma’s company Taobao became a market leader in the Chinese market, eBay withdrew from China. EBay, the competition, was like the shark fighting and making the ocean red. When competitors are gone, there is no more fighting, no more red. When they are gone, the ocean is clear and blue.

For me, founding the High-Ticket Closing program was a Blue Ocean. I offered a premium prices sales program that was new to the marketplace.

When you can create a Blue Ocean opportunity, you will have found something ahead of your competitors. To do that, identify what it is that no one else is offering and take advantage of it before anyone else.

3. Hire Women

Jack Ma’s secret to making a company excellent is to hire women. Almost 47% of the employees at his company are female. I strongly agree with this secret to success.

All of the bad business partnerships I’ve had in the past were all with men. All the ones where I’ve been successful were all with women. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my wife Jennie.

Really, it’s women who have all the major buying power. If a man wants to buy a new house, he has to talk to the wife. If he wants to buy a new car, he has to talk to the wife. Even if the husband is the one bringing in the money, it’s the wife that makes the buying decision.

In closing, in sales, I teach my students to sell to the wife. If the husband can’t move forward, he needs the wife to say yes. If the wife says yes, then it’s a done deal.

4. Think Bigger And Create An Ecosystem

Jack Ma believes that when you have a couple million dollars, that money belongs to you. But when you have one billion dollars, that money doesn’t belong to you anymore. When you have that much wealth, you have a social responsibility to other people.

He believed that when you have that much wealth, you can create a global economy, one ecosystem where people can buy and sell, make payments, and travel using one global system. We could create an economy that would generate 100,000,000 jobs in the world.

His way of thinking inspired how I set my own business goals. I started small, and kept dreaming bigger and bigger.

At the beginning of my career, I started my business because I wanted to support my mom. Once I had enough income coming in, I was able to support my mom, my family, and myself. At the next stage, I improved my lifestyle with a better car and a better house.

Once I accomplished that, I went on to larger goals. I started solving bigger problems while building my organization and my team. Then it wasn’t just Dan Lok organization, it became the students that benefited from my programs and services.

Over time, I was building an ecosystem where I was helping not just myself but the people around me to create opportunities, a better lifestyle, and more abundance for others.

Like Jack Ma, I was learning to think bigger, beyond my own needs and my own family’s needs. I was thinking at a global level.

Apple has created an ecosystem with its products. The information from our lives is integrated with the cloud.

 

5. Business Is A Team Sport

Business is not a sport that you play on your own. It doesn’t matter how talented you are.

As a leader, it’s not about you doing all the work. It’s about you having the vision, figuring out what the are most important critical drivers within your business, and then finding the team members that can execute your vision and turn that into reality.

Choosing the right team member is critical to your success. Jack Ma said that you should choose the right person for the job. If you don’t know technology, hire the best technician. If you don’t know finance, hire the expert.

6. Work With Small Businesses

Just like a business isn’t something you can build on your own, success isn’t something you can reach on your own. If you help others, then you will also rise up.

Jack Ma says, “I believe small is beautiful. We can use the internet to help the small guys. If you can help others to be successful, then you will be successful.”

I’ve approached building my business in that way. I’ve made most of my money serving small businesses, clients, and my students. Only a small percentage of my wealth is from big companies. The majority of my wealth is from small businesses.

As Jack Ma said, “In this world, if you want to win in the 21st century, you have to be making sure that you are making other people become powerful, empower others; making sure the other people are better than you are, then you will be successful.”

7. Traditional Education Is Important But Not Everything

Jack Ma advises us, “Don’t hire people because of which school they are from. Hire because of their learning spirit.”

I absolutely agree with this approach because within my company, we never hire based on resumes. Actually no one has ever submitted a resume! We look at your attitude, your culture fit, and what talents you can bring to the table.

Skills are something we can develop and train, but attitude and company culture are number one. It doesn’t matter if they have an MBA. I never went to university.

What matters is your learning spirit, the fighting spirit, the hunger. Any skill, if someone wants it badly enough, they can develop, but I cannot teach them culture. I cannot teach them to share the same values and beliefs that my company has. I cannot teach them the desire to succeed.

8. Focus On Value, Mission, And Value Training

Jack Ma taught values, the mission, and professionalism. After that, his company got more managers and leaders than other startups. With that change, his company started to do better because he believes it’s about creating value for others.

Technology might change. Your product might change. Your service might change. But if you have the right people, the right culture, you can work together as a team, and you can innovate. So it’s definitely people driven and customer centered.

When you are focused on the customer, on the people, and your team, that’s what makes the company grow. That’s what makes the company stay and sustain the growth.

9. Follow The Customer To Business Model

Of all of Jack Ma’s rules for success, is the most important tip of all.

You may have heard of B2C and B2B, but Jack Ma believes the future of ecommerce is C2B, consumer to business, because we have a large number of consumers. The focus won’t be on businesses to customers (B2C) or business to business (B2B), but the power of the customer.

They can ask for things to be tailor made on a large scale, and businesses will need to addresses their demands because consumers are now more demanding than ever.

They want to consume content exactly how they want, where they want, from whatever technology that they want. For example, they may want to watch a show without interruption. Or they want the option to watch a show from their iPad, their iPhone, not just their TV.

They want to buy and consume on their own terms and organizations need to be able to fulfill that need.

The model of “this is what we have and you should buy some” won’t work anymore.

Even Coca Cola has personalized bottles with people’s first names as one of their campaigns. Consumers made demands, and the largest companies are listening. They are custom tailoring to the needs of their customers.

Summary: Jack Ma’s Top 9 Rules For Success

If you want to be successful, never get too comfortable. Always be thinking outside the box, looking for new opportunities that will keep you in a Blue Ocean. Business is a team sport, one that you cannot play on your own. So work with small businesses and focus on creating value. And most importantly, listen to your customers and their needs. It’s your responsibility.

Which of Jack Ma’s rules for success do you like the most? Comment below.

SUGGESTED ARTICLES:

How to Hire the Right People: Lessons From A Future Billionaire

Dan Lok’s Blue Ocean Strategy

Bruce Lee’s Rules For Success

 

I hope you enjoy reading this blog post.

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