Good communication leads to good relationships, and good relationships are good for business. This applies to both our personal and professional lives. Whether you are on the distributor or supplier side of our industry, your business is based on selling something. To ultimately be successful selling, you need to start with being a good communicator.
One of my industry colleagues, Vince Terracina from Tag Marketing shared an inspirational 1-minute video of his 90-year-old grandfather. The message is so simple, but so often we miss it. Just be nice. You can watch this short video here.
We all have encountered situations where people aren’t nice. I live in Southern California, where many people are stressed and road rage is common. People will cut you off if you need to change lanes, or plow ahead of you at a store’s checkout line.
Obviously, this is not exclusive to California and I confess that I may not be as nice as I should be all the time. But I have learned the value of slowing down, and simply being nice to others. Offering a smile and a quick hi to people who pass you by where it’s appropriate is a good thing. If someone has a couple of items to buy in the store, I let them go ahead of me.
In our jobs it’s frustrating when people don’t respond to our sales efforts. But that’s the way it goes sometimes. People are on overload and there are only so many hours in the day. If we are trying to “sell” them something—even though we feel there is great value—the person on the other end may just have too many other things on their plate. What we are able to offer them is just not their priority. It happens.
Coming back to the simple concept of being nice, there is a value to a quick reply to effectively reject business sales calls. Whether it’s a “no”, “sorry it’s not a fit,” or “it’s not good for us at this time,” responding to these communications is not a bad thing to do. Instead, we are often left with silence. Or we are guilty of going silent ourselves to those who are looking for a response from us.
The concept of being nice transcends business. I auditioned for a community play and can accept that I wasn’t on par with the talent they wanted. My acting range is quite limited. The director told me he would get back to me, but never did. That was frustrating, but speaks to the importance of communicating. Especially, since when you say you will. By not communicating, he missed a chance to capture me (and my family) to volunteer in many behind the scenes roles that they desperately need help with. My family loves to volunteer. Since I was snubbed, none of us feel compelled to donate countless hours to this production.
My role as publisher of the PPAI award winning FreePromoTips.com and my distributor business puts me in a unique position. FPT offers suppliers the opportunity to reach our large audience through our unique relationship based communication style with distributors. The companies who are a part of the FreePromoTips program are at the top of my go to supplier list for my distributor business. Not only are they great companies, they also understand the value of how FreePromoTips benefits the industry. We have great relationships due to great communication (and we are nice to one another).
In reaching out to suppliers for our innovative SuccessFit “exercise” at the PPAI Expo, we directly approached a couple of companies that we knew had a product in a category that would be a good fit. Both were non-responsive.
Since 100% of the proceeds of the nominal $9.60 participation fee goes to the Promotional Products Education Foundation (PPEF), we decided to look at who received scholarships from the Foundation. We thought that these companies might want to pay it forward and be a part of what we are doing. One of the companies that originally was non responsive, had someone receive a PPEF Scholarship. We followed up again, mentioning this. There still was no response. Got it. They were not interested in what we were doing or paying it forward.
Every business has a choice as to how they respond to solicitations. Buyers also have a choice as to who to buy from. Being nice is good for business.
The Pay it Forward concept is not revolutionary, and there is a whole movement based on it. “Pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying it to others instead of to the original benefactor.”
Vince Terracina’s 90-year-old grandfather has it right. “Just be nice.” There is much wisdom in that.
BIO INFORMATION:
Jeff Solomon, MAS is affiliated with a Top 10 distributor company and also publishes FreePromoTips.com, a popular industry resource. The PPAI award winning FreePromoTips.com website and twice a month e-newsletters are packed with beneficial information. On the website, you can opt in to receive these informative twice a month e-newsletters! Check out what’s new in the GP2: Good Products-Good Prices section of the site. Take advantage of FREE end user safe product videos you can share from their YourPromotionSolution.com website. LIKE their page on Facebook follow them on Twitter and connect with Jeff on LinkedIn. FreePromoTips.com is also on Pinterest!
