"Consistency is critical for sales and business success"

Gavin Ingrham has a rather obtuse post that I thought applicable to a number of scenarios in (the staffing) business. I'll leave the links for you to draw from your own experiences but as he says (in reference to the BBC changing the air time of The Apprentice: Consistency is critical for sales and business success.

Your clients need to know what to expect from you. People thrive on certainty. If you give your clients a coffee one time, you should give them a coffee every time. The BBC might be thinking that they won’t lose any Apprentice viewers over this but they almost certainly will. It may be a slash of the pen for them but for some of their customers this will be seen as sacrilege.

I have a “friend” who runs a café. She is supposed to open at 9am. I went down there the other day for a business meeting and she was shut. No reason, no apology, no excuse… just shut. I won’t organise another meeting there again… ever. Not a lot of lost business just from me admittedly but I am not her only customer. How many other customers felt the same and will not be going back?

Sales training tip: If you want to be seen as a reliable, professional and trustworthy business partner for your clients you need to set yourself sales and business standards and stick to them.