Can you feel it? It’s all around us.

No, I’m not talking about the doom and gloom of the stock market or the latest bank collapse. I’m talking about a the subtle changes where you shop, eat, bank, style your hair and service your car. Despite the dark sky of economic woes, there’s a silver lining – a shift toward the customer.

• Chain restaurant staff are more welcoming.
• Safeway has a sale sign on every item (recognizing that people need to perceive a deal before they’ll buy)
• The local Toyota dealership is offering free Cappuccino’s on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and now leaves you with a bounce-back coupon.
• Staples offered 50% off any copy paper (although tied to their rewards program – not very customer focused)

And last night, while I was at the local Target, the floor manager announced (loud enough for customers to hear) that any employee that helped a customer find a “high ticket” item resulting in the largest sale would get a $5.00 Target gift card.

Think back to not too long ago. Didn’t you feel complacency just prior to the storm clouds moving in? I’m guessing Lehman Brothers, Fannie and Freddie all were perched on their porches in rocking chairs before the tornado came. The shift had drifted to the seller.

New found energy?

Genuine customer focus?

Desperation?

Here’s the question that pulls at me – what if this customer focus du jour transcends beyond the current storm clouds? What if this recent shift back toward customer satisfaction propagates valuable lessons that translate into better service once the sunny days are here again?

Perhaps this is a divine shake up -requiring us to “love you brother as yourself” in order to get back on track.

Those who are truly customer-focused will soak up what works and what doesn’t through these trials. Those that are thinking about these activities as a tactic to wait out the storm will probably revert back to their old ways.

In the short term, buyers benefit. In the long-term both buyers and seller can.

Leland Kuhn
Director, Materials Management
Children’s National Medical Center
Washington, DC

Last week I had the chance to sit down with one of the most professional procurement executives that I’ve had the honor of knowing for more than a decade, both as a customer (when I worked at Boise Cascade), and as a friend. Lee Kuhn oversees a $400,000,000 annual budget with functional responsibility for departments that “turn the wheel” behind the scenes at one of the nation’s leading hospitals, Children’s National Medical Center.

He shared some insights on criteria he uses to retain his existing suppliers, visit with new ones, and make supplier changes.

Even in these challenging times, Lee suggests that while pricing is a factor it’s overrated when compared to the importance of relationships. He goes so far as to say, “Trust is everything.” These are some great insights for sellers in any industry; there’s a lot here to unpack.

Mark: Given the state of the economy, sellers are continually seeking new ways to win business. What advice could you give them, and which factors are critical to your decision-making process for converting to a new supplier?

Lee: This sounds simple, but sellers need to ask their customers to articulate their needs. If you ask us, we will tell you to make us look like heroes. How do you do that? Help us to reduce costs and/or improve quality. If your goods or services can do either one or both, that will get your foot in the door.

Our operating budget is slightly over a billion dollars a year. If our existing spend for your type of product is only $100,000/year and you can give us a better product at a 10% cost savings, you still may not get the sale. Why not? We must weigh the “pain of conversion” factor. If changing to your product is difficult, we may pass even if the savings or improvements are impressive. Conversely, if the change is easy, the savings or improvements may not need to be significant. Find out what you can do for your customer to relieve that pain. In other words, make the juice worth the squeeze.

Mark: As you consider all of the factors that go into decision-making; either to keep or change a given category, describe the importance of the relationship with the selling organization and just how important a role trust plays? Can you give an example?

Lee: Trust is everything, and it only takes one unfulfilled promise to ruin your relationship with your customer.

We have a sales rep whose company provides equipment maintenance service to our hospital. She and her company have given us excellent customer service for years, and have built a strong relationship of trust.

She recently came to us with a somewhat radically different approach to providing service. The effort of conversion was significant, but we were assured that her company would do most of the work. The proposed savings exceeded $900,000 per year. To this day I still believe that she was not intentionally doing anything untrustworthy…she was just trying to make a sale. She didn’t have a good grasp of the concept her company was trying to sell.

After numerous meetings with key players from her company and ours, it became apparent that her proposal wasn’t much more than creative financing with a questionable return. It made her look bad because she clearly didn’t understand what she was selling. It made her company look bad for trying to sell us something that we didn’t want. It made us look bad for wasting our end-users’ time.

We now have an entirely different impression of our sales rep and her company, and it is doubtful that they will ever be able to change that impression. (Note from the author – notice how a high self-orientation dramatically depleted the trust she had accrued).

Mark: In this tight economy, many sales organizations are focusing on reducing their costs, in part to lower their sell prices. What role does price play in your decision making process and how far should sellers go to bring down their costs?

Lee: We say we look at value, not cost. We say that if we can’t get what we want when we want it, price is irrelevant. Both of those statements are true, but when finances are tight, it’s a lot more difficult to justify the purchase of a higher priced item because it is better. We only pay more for quality when we’re clear about the value we get in return. Consequently, I would caution sellers not to reduce their costs to the point at which customer value erodes.

Mark: In live conversations with sellers – what are the biggest turn-offs and what speeds up the trust process?

Lee: Don’t waste our time. Due to the nature of our business, we have thousands of different vendors who sell us goods and services. We don’t have time to meet with each of them, much less their competitors. If you do get a face-to-face meeting, get to the point. A few minutes of personal time to get to know your customer is expected, but then get down to business. Know how much time you have and leave early. When we rush you out of the office so we can make our next appointment, we don’t want to hear that you’ll schedule another meeting so you can finish your proposal. Good luck with that.

Mark: What other advice can you share with sellers to help us with decision-makers like you on “the other side of the desk”?

Lee: You are constantly a customer in your day-to-day life, whether it’s in the drive-through at McDonald’s or in the showroom at Mercedes-Benz (good sales reps always make more than their customers). How do you like being treated? Find out what your customer wants and give it to them. Most of all, listen to them.

My fist pumped high in the air after I hung up the phone. By some miracle, I secured the appointment to see “Mr. Big”, the Chief Financial Officer at the old USF & G (now absorbed into Travelers Insurance); in their heyday they built the tallest building in Baltimore (still is to this day) to symbolize their financial strength and stability. I was a young, fearless rep in my mid twenties who was about to be the conductor of his own train wreck.

It didn’t take long for our Regional VP to invite himself on the appointment; we’ll call him “Mr. Brooks”. It would be an understatement to say Mr. Brooks didn’t have a reputation for his compassion. What’s more, he was nearly 30 years my senior. Simply put, he intimidated me.

As the date of the call approached, I fixated on what I was going to say and do to achieve “rock star status”. I purchased a new “money” tie, had my shoes shined and picked out the “A” suit. I stuffed my briefcase with brochures and samples and mentally ran through my script. Like most sales reps, I visualized the Caribbean cruise or the new car I’d get with the chickens I counted that hadn’t yet hatched.

8:00 AM – I was instructed to pick up Mr. Brooks at his office so we could talk about our plan on the way to the call. He skipped the small talk and jumped to a laundry list of questions, most of which, I could not answer. “Who are they currently buying from? How much do they spend a year? Do they have an in-house print shop? What are Mr. Big’s expectations for the call?”

I thought, “I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I should know”.
And finally…
“I’m an IDIOT.”

My anxiousness turned to anxiety. I thought to myself, “You just went from a rock star to a sinking rock”. I answered his questions, which now felt like an interrogation, with measured responses.

“Well I believe they buy from Moore. I think their spend is between $500,000 – $600,000.” Each answer sounded less and less convincing. I cleared my throat as my neck tightened. “I know they had an in-house print shop” thinking to myself “you schmuck – you saw a picture of some documents on a desk from 1917 in their Annual Report – that doesn’t qualify as a print shop”.

8:20 AM – As we drove up to the building, I slithered out the door and made no eye contact with Mr. Brooks, now incapable of masking my inadequacy.

We rode up the elevator to the executive level, which was adorned with wood paneled walls, leather wing-backed chairs and oil paintings sequentially depicting the lineage of past President’s that built this once mega insurance company. Mr. Big had his own waiting area outside of his corner office.

The pressure was getting to me and I felt myself crumbling. I found myself fighting off nightmarish thoughts of tossing my cookies as we waited for Mr. Big. “Don’t think that, don’t think that, la-di-da, la-di-da”.

8:35 AM – After what seemed like an eternity, I decided to open my briefcase and go through my marketing collateral.

8:36 – It was about that time that anxiety turned into disaster. The handle turned on Mr. Big’s closed door and he entered the lobby to greet us. He took several steps toward us and I noticed Mr. Brooks stand up. I quickly closed my briefcase, you know, the kind with the combination locks to securely snap it shut? I prepared my face to generate a convincing smile, but as I started to stand, I sensed a tremendous pressure on my throat. I unleashed a gutteral hacking sound. In my haste to close my briefcase, I failed to make sure my necktie was outside it’s demon-like grip. Now my eyes went into BULGE mode and I was still leaning at a 45 degree angle from the waist with a full briefcase – hanging me, corporate style.

STILL 8:36 – I had to think quickly because Mr. Big had now extended his arm for a handshake. I was now beyond trying to mask the embarrassment and in survival mode. Not only was I incapable of talking, I was afraid of losing consciousness. I trusted my instincts…which was another big mistake. The only thing to do, I thought, was to unlock the briefcase.

At first, one side unlocked but the other didn’t. I noticed that the combination code was one digit off. So I moved the hand I had supporting the bottom of the briefcase from falling to spin the combination to the right code and pushed the metal button to the left. It released…and so did everything inside my briefcase. My briefcase actually threw up on Mr. Big’s wing-tip shoes and then careened into his chins.

“This is only a dream”, I thought. But it was the sales call from hell. I’ve blacked-out the rest of the call. I only recall that we never got the business.

This lesson for me was not just one of humility. According to trust expert Charles H. Green, self orientation is the single biggest factor of your trustworthiness. This was a lesson on self-orientation which I aspired for so desperately on this call. Yet, self-orientation cuts two ways. The more obvious version is the one of the rock star. The cocky sales person who masks his high self-orientation with customer-focused
tactics waiting to pounce on an opening to go for the close. Buyers see right through these behaviors. The other side to self-orientation has to do with over-concern for self. Worry. In my case, I was worried about impressing both Mr. Brooks and Mr. Big instead of what I might offer to help Mr. Brooks with an important business issue.

Whether you think you’re a rock star or a sinking rock, remember where to put your focus – on the buyer and not yourself.