by Josh Klenoff
Sometimes, a simple conversation can be worth thousands of dollars.
Who knew?
It began with a challenge brought up by Lacy... a bitter memory despite Rizzo’s many sweet products. They had lost a customer several weeks before - Martine’s Bakery. “I’ve tried to call them back, but the customer won’t even take my call!” she explained.
“Did something go wrong?” asked Simon.
“As far as I know, the only issue was that our old buyer, Jeff, left Martine’s. There’s a new guy in his place. He swooped in, like... a pastry-hating vulture. His only explanation to me was that Martine’s has a new bakery wholesaler, Arnaldo’s.” The team grumbled at the sound of their competitor’s name.
The people at the meeting were disappointed but seemed resigned.
They offered platitudes. It sounded like a motivational poster convention…
• “You win some, you lose some.”
• “It is what it is.”
• “What can you do?”
• “Oh well, better luck next time!”
Randy, however, was not ready to give up. “You don’t have a breaking-up process?” he asked, producing a laugh and a firm, “no.”
“Trust me,” said Lacy. “If you met my exes, you’d know why I don’t.”
“Fair enough,” said Simon. “But being ‘dumped’ by a client isn’t the same as your ex-boyfriend with bad breath. You can learn something from a former customer... maybe even make things right. So, let’s figure out why we lost them.”
Paul had a thought. “I’m pretty sure that new buyer has a personal connection with their new supplier. There’s no way they would have moved there without some personal reason - Arnaldo’s is double our price and half our quality.”
“So, there’s a personal connection involved,” said Simon. “Those are tough to compete against. We may be able to fight fire with fire, though. Does anyone here have a personal connection to Martine’s?”
Lacy raised a hand. “The owner was a friend of my grandparents. That’s how I landed the account.”
“That’s good,” said Randy with a nod. “I know it might feel a little messy right now, but would you be comfortable giving them a call? No need to put any pressure on them, but just put your feelers out there. Let them shed some light on what’s going on.”
Lacy was more than comfortable. In fact, she was ready to find out right then and there. She dialed. “Mr. Martine!” she said in a bubbly voice. “It’s Lacy, Bill and Evelyn’s granddaughter. How are you?” Mr. Martine was excited to hear from her. They chatted for a minute about family, and then Lacy brought up the question: what happened?
Mr. Martine was stunned to hear that the new buyer had ended the relationship with Rizzo’s, and just started with Arnaldo’s. I’ll talk to him now and fix this.”
An hour later, the account was back. Their $115K a year account was back.
Simon stood and went to the board, where the 5 P’s were written:
• PRIORITIES
• PEOPLE
• PROCESS
• PROBLEM-SOLVING
• PARADIGMS
He pointed to the third bullet point. “I think we can put ‘postmortem’ with PROCESS.” He sat back down. “Think of these 5 P’s as a sort of trap, and our problems are flies. If we tried to swat at each one that we encountered, we’d just be swinging wildly. Using this approach, though, the problems will reveal themselves much more smoothly. No more swatting about at symptoms randomly.”
The 5 P’s didn’t make problems go away - but it created a filter, a template for solving issues. It helped create a culture dedicated and ready to trap any difficulties that came their way...