Everyone In Your Organization Is A Salesperson; Make Certain They Are Trained And Understand This Responsibility.
Every person within your business organization represents you and your business in many meaningful ways. At their church, at their PTO meetings, with their family and friends, and especially when in or direct—or even indirect—contact with potential or existing customers. Everyone who works for you represents you, your business and the products or services you sell. They are your ambassadors. It is crucial that they understand this role and are trained to represent you in the best light possible.
Some of this is organic; it comes naturally from being part of any organization that becomes the identity of your employees. However, some of this comes from training, by defining the specific roles your employees will be playing and how to fulfill them meaningfully and appropriately. If this is accomplished, you will have a good chance of having many goodwill ambassadors for your company. If trained properly, employees will understand their responsibilities and will implement them successfully. Without specific training, it is a shot in the dark.
This is very important, as you have no idea how deep and wide the networking opportunities of your workforce may be. You also have no idea how positive the impact a good atmosphere creates by every employee being prepared when in contact with a prospect or client.
Consider the enormous negative effect of a disgruntled, unhappy, unprepared employee who either purposely or unintentionally undermines the goodwill of the company. Worse yet, consider the damage that may be done by their negative projection beyond the office, to prospective customers. The attitude set forth by employees can either make many prospects into customers, or have the opposite effect, killing all prospects. Either way, it’s a direct result of the training employees have had in understanding their job and the company image.
If the employees do not trust the owners, or understand the business or the product, and they demonstrate this in their actions, why would a prospect become a customer? If they do exhibit understanding, trust and respect for the business, the owners and the product or service, then the prospective client will believe it is probably the real deal. After all, why else would an employee exhibit this attitude if they did not themselves have confidence in their company?
I am not suggesting you can train your employees to lie for the company if they do not believe in it; this will never work. I am saying that if trained effectively, employees will do a much better job of presenting the correct image, with confidence and positivity, than if left to their own devices to figure it out. It is the job of the owner to translate the company image to the employees so they can be part of the success of the company, not a detriment to it.
