You Already Have ‘NO', Go For ‘YES'

#SridharPeddisetty #PreSales #Negotiation #Project #BestPractices #Agile #ProjectManagement 

"You already have NO, go for YES!" is possibly the best advise shared by my colleague to sum up a hectic 10 days PreSales trip. In the last ten days, we travelled extensively across North America meeting with various clients, which worked out to be an enriching experience for both of us. Coming from a delivery background, this PreSales trip was a learning experience in many ways for me. More often than not, when you are selling your services, its the preconceived perception that is normally challenging to change. By definition, perception is the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted. So when my wise colleague shared with me the wisdom he got from his mother, it truly reflected the challenge we mostly overcome during our PreSales meetings. The challenge of going for ‘Yes’ when we already have a ‘No’. 

In my earlier blog posts, 5 Tips Delivering Quality Services To Your Client and 7 Tips Having Good Times In A Client Relationship, I had shared tips on maintaining robust client relationships and how to ensure providing quality services to your client. This post is more applicable for PreSales phase, which precedes before starting work with a new client or on a new project. In the book "Getting to Yes, Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In", based on the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project, authors Roger Fisher and William Ury outline four parameters for principled negotiation:

1. Separate the people from the problem
2. Focus on interests, not positions
3. Generate a variety of possibilities before making a decision and 
4. Define objective standards as the criteria for making the decision

All of above four parameters are applicable when transforming the perception of people into a positive outlook. Below I am sharing five tips on how you can go for ‘Yes’ when you have already have a ‘No’.

Tip#1: Identify the people for whom you would want to change perception - Its an important first step to identify the people and their positioning of strength. Have a clear understanding on who are the influencers whose change of opinion would matter the most. Its more on focusing on their respective needs rather than their positions. 

Tip#2: Identify the reasoning of perception - Understand the background to get some context behind the perception. Its important to understand whether the perception is a direct result of personal experience or its an opinion formed by hearing other’s experience. This would help while devising the plan on transforming.  

Tip#3: Plan to transform the perception - Identify and establish some common grounds while planning the transformation. There is a reason why a perception is formed so plan to be assertive without being argumentative. Prepare yourself with ideas, logics and rational reasoning to counter the perception.  

Tip#4: Execute on the plan - Its important to keep emotions under check while executing the transformation. Keep in mind to respond and not to react. Always keep me in mind that you build relationships and connect with others by listening to understand and not listening to respond. 

Tip#5: Have Follow Ups - Its important to have regular follow ups with the individuals you are trying to change the perception. Closing the loop is very critical in ensuring a trustworthy relationship. 

Summary

To summarize, going after ‘Yes’ is more about knowing what you want, going after it and in the process respecting the person on other end of the deal. Go after ‘Yes’ to build long lasting relationships rather than burning bridges on your way out of the meeting room.

“Place a higher priority on discovering what a win looks like for the other person.” – Harvey Robbins

Previous posts you might be interested in 

• 5 Tips Delivering Quality Services To Your Client
• 7 Tips Having Good Times In A Client Relationship
• Active Listening Is Key For A Successful Delivery 

5 Tips Delivering Quality Services To Your Client

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #ClientManagement #ClientRelationship #EngagementManagement #CustomerService 

A gentleman once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, “Do you need two statues of the same idol?” “No,” said the sculptor without looking up, “We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.” The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. “Where is the damage?” he asked. “There is a scratch on the nose of the idol.” said the sculptor, still busy with his work. “Where are you going to install the idol?” The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. “If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?” the gentleman asked. The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, “I know it and God knows it!”

It was probably the understatement of the year when President and CEO of Volkswagen's US group admitted that the company "totally screwed up" in using software to rig emissions tests. More than the tangible monetary losses, it's the intangible reputation & loss of customer trust that will impact Volkswagen the most.

According to Gartner, 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, and it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one satisfied. So it is a no brainer to understand that retaining an existing customer is very important for the continuous growth of any company. In my earlier post 7 Tips Having Good Times In A Client Relationship, I shared tips for helping experience the good times in a client relationship while converting them into everlasting memories & forging long term relationships. According to report from Oracle:

• 81% - customers are willing to pay more for a superior customer experience with nearly half (44%) willing to pay a premium of more than 5%.
• 89% - customers switched brands after a poor customer experience.
• 20% - annual percentage revenue losses due to poor customer experiences.

Below I am sharing 5 tips on how to deliver quality services to your client and ensuring trusting relationships

Tip#1: Understand the strategic objectives of your client - Long everlasting relationships begin with knowing your clients' wants and needs. Most times the focus is on scope, schedule, cost and the solution. It is important to understand the business problem or the strategic goal, which the client needs to achieve. We need to provide simple solutions to complex problems and not the other way around. 

Tip#2: Provide transparency in the delivery process to your client - Transparency is important in every business and client service is no different. Always strive for a high quality output by being transparent with your client on the delivery process and keep them engaged. Being transparent and with robust communication, you minimize the element of surprise and at the same time, earn client’s trust. One reason for wide adoption of Agile is mainly because it encourages customer involvement throughout the delivery process. 

Tip#3: Proactively plan for frequent client feedbacks - You need to measure client satisfaction and engagement by taking frequent feedbacks. Regular check points with the client can help easily identify areas of concern and perform course corrections before issues lead to an unhappy client. Without constant feedback from clients, it's more like working in a vacuum and waiting to be surprised. 

Tip#4: Be consistent in providing your services - Every client is important and you need to appreciate that by creating a unique client experience. Whether your client is a fortune 100 or not, be consistent in providing your services. It's a fact that a satisfied client would be willing to refer your services, leading to increased opportunities; while a non-satisfied client can spread the word faster and even more so via social media. 

Tip#5: Share your new services, processes, tools or competencies - A proactive customer service to help find solutions for continuous improvement not only helps keep the client happy but turns them into your strong brand advocate. You are cultivating shared values by engaging the client in your new services, processes, tools or competencies, which fosters relationships. 

Summary

To summarize, clients do not owe you their loyalty, you have to earn it continuously. Any organization’s strategy for their services should be built around delivering quality customer service. When performed properly, you have earned a happy client for life. 

"Quality means doing it right when no one is looking." - Henry Ford

Previous posts you might be interested in:

• 7 Tips Having Good Times In A Client Relationship
• Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities
• Are You Providing 'Right' Status of Your Project, Program or Portfolio?

7 Tips Having Good Times In A Client Relationship

#SridharPeddisetty #Leadership #Management #ClientManagement #ClientRelationship #EngagementManagement

When you come back from a family vacation, normally you remember all the good times you had including the moments that made you laugh, moments that made you relaxed, moments that made you feel proud, moments that made you feel blessed and moments that made you feel loved. If you have taken a road trip, you do not remember the number of times you applied the brakes or the mechanics of driving unless you met with an accident or had a near miss. Using the same metaphor, in a client relationship its not about the mechanics of delivering services to the client that is memorable but the feel good factors along the way, which the client experienced that remain memorable. It goes without saying that like the accident metaphor, if a service fails to deliver the value, it does stay in the memory with likely negative consequences.

Here are 7 tips for helping experience the good times in a client relationship while converting them into everlasting memories & forging long term relationships. 

#1. Build strategy around client satisfaction: A satisfied client is the best business strategy of all so build your strategy in delivering quality services to the client and define standards in terms of people, process and tools. Client appreciates processes which are standardized, routinized, predictable. Having variances in delivering services most often than not makes it complex while standardizing always makes job a bit less complex with predictable quality. 

#2. Be passionate about client service: Its important to understand how your services relate to the client and how the services solve client’s business problems. Always think about client’s business as if its your own and be passionate about it.  Working out the issues with this frame of mind, we ensure complete honesty while balancing in client’s favor and not merely always on our own wins. Its not the short term wins but the long term client gains, which fosters lasting client relationships. 

#3. Build the trust factor: The toughest thing about the power of trust is that its difficult to build and very easy to destroy. The essence of trust building is to emphasize the similarities between you and the client. Always keep in mind that courteous treatment will make a client a walking advertisement and will not only help you win return client business but also new hunting grounds with client referrals. Be honest with your client and realistic in the services you provide. 

#4. See opportunity when client complains: Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited as it represents a huge opportunity for more business, provided you handle it appropriately. We all understand that there would be times when client would complain and instead of being negative or defensive, use the opportunity to be an active listener and empathize with client. Earlier I had  shared a post on similar lines Why Active Listening is Key for Successful Delivery of Agile Based Projects

#5. Be Proactive rather than reactive: It is so much easier to be nice, to be respectful, to put yourself in your customers' shoes and try to understand how you might help them before they ask for help, than it is to try to mend a broken customer relationship. “You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there”, so instead of being reactive, walk a mile wearing client’s shoe and be proactive. Devise a robust communication and stakeholder plan to manage being proactive and have a vision for client partnership. 

#6. Strive to be the best for client: Akio Toyoda famously said "Everyone says Toyota is the best company in the world, but the customer doesn't care about the world. They care if we are the best in town, or not. That's what I want to be.” Same thing applies when it does not necessarily matter to the client whether you are a top consultancy services company in the world or having more skilled resources but what matters most to the client is that you are best for them and partnering closely to achieve their strategic business goals.  

#7. Understand client expectations: Do not deliver services based on what client wants but deliver services based on what client needs. Its known fact that no customer ever asked for the electric light, the pneumatic tire or the iPhone. To understand client needs, its important to connect with them personally at all levels. Foster relationships through face to face meetings,  small talks and regular check-ins to always map delivering services aligned with the needs of the client. 

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives" 

Previous posts you might be interested in

• 5 Reasons To Let Your Team Struggle Today
• Empower Your Team To Own Responsibilities
• Are You Providing 'Right' Status of Your Project, Program or Portfolio?

7 Tips Having Good Times In A Client Relationship was originally published in LinkedIn