The Dogwood Tree
April 24, 2009
Because of the warm weather we get here in North Carolina at various times during winter, there are lots of “false starts” as to when spring actually begins. It certainly fools the daffodils that poke up though the ground and bloom, only to shrivel up and die a few days later when the normal lower temperatures return.
Just last week, though, I went out into our backyard and did a double-take. The dogwood tree on the side of our property was in full bloom, and it was absolutely magnificent!
We’d planted the tree about five years ago, but it never really seemed happy there. We pruned the tree, and fertilized it properly, but the leaves never seemed quite as green and healthy as they should have, and the flowers always seemed a bit anemic. This year, though, it was completely different – bright white blooms virtually covered the tree to the extent that you could hardly see the branches underneath.
When I commented on this to my wife, she said, “Maybe it just needed some time to get used to us.” Now, I’m not a big “give each house plant a name and talk to it in an encouraging way so it will thrive” kind of guy, but there was something that rang true in what Lorie said.
We’ve had clients book programs with us years after first seeing me present at conferences they attended themselves. We’ve had people invest in our resources after “sitting on the sidelines” for months. Things like these actually happen quite frequently.
And this is why you absolutely have to maintain ongoing relationships with your customers, members, clients…and prospects. Too many people make a sale, put a “tick mark” on a chart somewhere, move on to the next person, and completely ignore the lifetime value sitting, untapped, in the customer they just served. Why? Because they figure the customer just bought something, so what’s the value of this person to me now?
When we bought a new car back in October, we witnessed this first hand. Entering dealership after dealership, we had to “run the gauntlet” past four or five salespeople (all standing around doing nothing productive) as the one who was “up next” virtually pounced on us, almost salivating at the prospect of actually selling a car.
Prior to this, we last bought new cars in 1993 and 1995 from Toyota and Jeep dealers, respectively. Do you think in all that time we’ve heard anything from the salespeople who sold us those vehicles? Not a chance.
It’s as if they’d planted a tree, seen no flowering or growth, and then stopped caring for it.
It would have been far better to stay in touch with us with a regular print or e-mail newsletter, and then invite us, after, maybe three years, to a special, nicely catered, Open House Event, where we could test-drive the new version of the Toyota Camry we had bought – if for no other reason than to get a whiff of that great new-car smell.
And if the salesperson who sold us the original car had moved on, then a new, aggressive, hungry salesperson could have done minimal research to collect all the unattended leads and taken them over as his own.
But this didn’t happen, and now these very same people are blaming the economy for their sub-par sales numbers.
Yes, the economy is a factor, but not cultivating and maintaining long-term relationships is an even bigger issue. If things are slow where you work, then now is the best possible time to develop these relationships, so when things pick up again and people are ready to spend, they’ll do business with the people they know and trust.
It may not happen next week, or even next month, but one day you’ll wake up and see that all of the time, effort, and money you’ve invested will start to pay off, just like the work and patience we put into that sad dogwood tree that has turned it into something truly amazing.
Comments
Got something to say?
