Going The Extra Inch
Let me tell you a true story about a salesman. He builds his client base by cold calling and referrals. When he called, he said he was referred by a close friend of ours. He started with the elevator pitch, then he asked me where we had bottlenecks in our company. He listened well and after hearing what I said he rephrased it back to me and then said I think I have a few solutions that will help with that. Over all, it was an enjoyable conversation. I felt heard and he was customizing his products to what we could possibly need.
Then I said, “Well right now I don’t want to spend the monthly amount to implement this new technology just yet, however I see the value of it as our company continues to grow.” I told him, that I am not the kind of person that makes decisions at the first meeting and need time to think things over, research and then when ready I will reach out to move forward whether that is in a few months or a year. I asked if he would send an email with his company details and a bit of what we talked about so I can have it ready to reference in the near future. He said, “I’m not the kind of person who sends emails if you are not interested in becoming a client now.”
At first, I laughed, because I thought he was joking. I said, “So you’re not going to send an email, so that I can reach out later?” He said “No, I don’t do that. I can tell you my business name and you can look it up and call me from there if you want.” I said, “Well, if you can’t send me your details then I guess there is nothing more to talk about.” He said, “Ok thanks, bye.” Getting off the phone I was in shock. What kind of businessman spends 10 minutes talking to a potential client, handling the objections, showing active listening, and then at the end if it’s not a sign me up today answer, he can’t be bothered to keep a potential future lead by sending a single email?
The ironic part was his business was using AI to simplify the process of business tasks. He could literally use his AI software to summarize and send me an email in less than a minute. Now, could I look him up and save his website details? Of course. But as we know, business owners have a lot of multi-tasking happening at all times, so I might jot down a sticky note today, and then in a few days look up the website and save it then. Even if I wasn’t a business owner, every employee has a lot on their plate at any given time. The idea of making something easier and readily available to a potential customer helps ensure they will be more ready to take the next step when they do. This is called going the extra mile, or in this case the extra inch.
I can’t think of an industry that when implementing new technology, equipment, ideas, ect, the manager or owner doesn’t take time to do their due diligence. For this salesman to expect otherwise and downplay the value of this process is naïve. As much as I liked his product, I will never hire him because of his lack of effort in the end.
There are many times in our company that we have people call in asking questions about what services we provide. After hearing their needs, we either are the right place to help or we are not. If we are not, we still do what we can to help send them in the right direction. This means giving them other another business name to look up. Sometimes they ask if we can give them the phone number or address of that company. Now of course it would be easier to say, “Well, you can Google it easily.” This would save us time for sure. But that is not the point. The point is, going the extra inch, can feel like going the extra mile to the customer.
We do this for 2 reasons. First, helping where we can is the right thing to do. Second, if a person has a good experience with us today, even if they do not do business with us, the next time they are looking for services that we offer, seeing our company name again will remind them of the good experience they had before. Every interaction we have with someone is a potential future customer. It could pan out today, next week, or next year. It doesn’t matter when. If we run our business like that salesman does then we are burning tiny bridges today that could be massive bridges later. As we all know, the power of referral is huge. We naturally refer companies and products we love, just as much as we naturally deter people from those things as we share our bad experience. Going the extra inch or mile can cost a little money or time today, but what it can bring back in the future is exponential.