Once upon a time there was a student, Cristina, who was very weak in maths.
Her mother found her a teacher for some private lessons. But Cristina, after several hours of lessons, got a 4 in the first test.
Obviously, those first hours were not enough.
What did her mother do?
She understood that the bad mark had been Cristina’s fault, who had too many previous gaps and had not yet begun to study enough with the right method.
She had to work even harder to remedy this.
She made her daughter feel responsible and also involved the private lessons teacher, sending her the mistakes Cristina made in the test, so that she could understand what gaps persisted and what she had to work on with the girl.
And she also invested in other private lessons.
She was determined to achieve the goal: her daughter would have filled in the gaps, learned the right method of study, and went well at school.
Fast forward…
Now Cristina is the top of her class.
A customer had salespeople who couldn’t attract new customers.
Then he contacted a supplier to give the company what they could not obtain on their own: appointments for salespeople.
The supplier set up a lead generation strategy and started generating appointments.
And he also began to ask his customer for feedback, to find out how things were going.
But everything was silent.
Then, one day he discovered that the salespeople, although they had received so many appointments, had closed few orders.
What did the customer do?
Nothing.
During the project he had not been able to get any feedback from salespeople. And he didn’t wonder whether they had been able to manage their first visits well. If they had asked the right questions or followed the customers well after their first appointment. If they were able to explain the value of the products. If, in short, they had gaps to fill.
Not at all.
He didn’t do any of that.
If he had done so, he could have sent the Sales Director to make some accompanying visits. He could have asked the supplier to change something. He could have asked for training to help salespeople finalize more orders.
Zero.
Instead of wondering about the causes of the result, he preferred to bury his head in the sand like an ostrich and did not renew the service.
And so, he took on forever the most onerous and dangerous of the hidden costs that damage a company: the inability to acquire new customers.
Moral:
Those who know how to be self-critical, want their organization to improve, and have the humility to ask the supplier for help, are successful.
The Others remain at the bottom of the class, or their market.
Call to action:
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