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Creating Extreme
Loyalty: Speaking of Long-Term Motivation
By Barry Maher
What would it take to make you
successful?
Stockbrokers base their success on making their clients money.
Or maybe not. The following story is one of many similar tales
I’ve heard from brokers over the years.
Back in the early seventies, when the market was dropping faster
than Richard Nixon’s approval ratings, a stockbroker was
trying to land a well-to-do contractor as a client. She wasn't
having much luck with him over the phone so one afternoon she
stopped by his office. It wasn't going any better until, searching
for something to build a little rapport, she noticed a newspaper
clipping mounted on a plaque on one wall. Accompanying the story
was a picture of a little girl in a ballet outfit.
"Is that your daughter?" she asked.
It was the last thing she got to say for ten minutes. The proud
parent went on and on about the kid and her dancing. With apparently
justifiable pride. His daughter had even been selected by George
Balanchine to perform in “The Nutcracker” at Lincoln
Center one year. That seemed to thrill the contractor even more
than it must have thrilled the girl.
A few months later, the broker heard that a world- renowned
Russian ballet troop was coming to town. She
bought two tickets. At $27.50 each, which back then, with the
stock market busily tunneling its way to hell, was a
lot of money. She sent the tickets to the contractor and his
daughter along with a warm personal note.
"Whereupon,"
says the broker, "the guy turned into what I call the Rasputin
Account: Nothing I did could kill it." Nothing. No matter
how badly her recommendations performed, the contractor kept
coming back for more.
As I said, any number of other financial consultants tell the
same type of story. Which is why brokerages teach
their people, "This business is not about making clients
money; it's about building relationships." That's just
not
what they tell their clients, most of whom seem to believe they're
more interested in making money than new friends.
Truth: Once people believe you care about them, they’ll
look for reasons to do business with you. When they look, they
usually find.
A Simple Trick, a Possible Bore
and Some Basic Motivation
There is of course a trick to getting a person to believe you
care about him or her. The trick to getting a person to believe
you care, is to care.
Someone once said that quoting yourself is the hallmark of the
true bore. That may well be true, but at the risk of confirming
what you might already suspect, here it comes anyway. As Barry
Maher (me) frequently says,
“Concentrate on the What’s-in-it-for-them
and the What’s-in- it-for-you will usually take care of
itself.”
You can concentrate on the What’s-in-it-for-you and still
be successful. There are business people out there who view
business as war and the customer as an enemy that has to be
overcome. They con the customer about who they are and how much
they care, even if they tell the complete truth about their
products and services.
Whether or not they have a problem with how that makes them
feel about their jobs and their lives is their business. This
isn’t about ethics. But the longer the relationship with
that customer goes on, the more likely it
is that their true priorities are going to come out. And when
that happens, no matter how well liked they might have been
before, they’re immediately going to drop back down to
the level of just another huckster.
Truth:
It’s easier just to care than to pretend to care.
# # #
About The Author:
Barry Maher speaks and trains on success, management, motivation,
communication and sales. His book, Filling the Glass was cited
as "[One of] The Seven Essential Popular Business Books"
by Today's Librarian. Visit his website and sign up for his
free newsletter at www.barrymaher.com
or contact him at 760-962-9872. |
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