“If you apply this test in your professional and personal life, you will be very successful.” ~ My grandfather Charles J. Proctor, Rotarian (in his office at the Travelier Motel in Columbia, Mo, to me when I was 10) 

Rotary International

Herbert J. Taylor (April 18, 1893 – May 1, 1978) was the creator of the “4-Way Test of the Things We Think, Say or Do” (see below). He wrote this 24-word statement of business ethics in twenty minutes as he set out to save the Club Aluminum Products distribution company from bankruptcy. 

Founded in 1923, Club Aluminum Cookware was sold by door-to-door salesmen until the Great Depression made this method of sales too costly. In 1932, it teetered on the verge of bankruptcy. The then-Vice President of Jewel Tea Company, Herbert J. Taylor, was asked come and help out in the hopes of avoiding insolvency. After he settled the law suits pending against the company, Taylor concluded that Club Aluminum was $400,000 in debt with no chance that existing sales could service even the short-term debt. He was advised to file for bankruptcy. Jewel Tea had concluded that the situation was hopeless and asked Taylor to return full-time. 

Instead, Taylor left his $33,000 salary at Jewel and became President of Club Aluminum, with a salary of $6,000. And, using his Jewel stock as collateral, he purchased the controlling interest in the Club Aluminum for $6,100. When Taylor took over the situation was so desperate. In developing his plan of action, his first priority was to change the ethical climate in the company. “If the people who worked for Club Aluminum were to think right, I knew they would do right,” he affirmed. ”What we needed was a simple, easily remembered guide to right conduct – a sort of ethical yardstick- which all of us in the company could memorize and apply to what we thought, said and did.” 

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Customer Winbacks

Emphatically “Yes”!

There are lots of reasons, other than the economy, why you are losing customers.

Customers could’ve been frustrated by delays, or aggravated by one bad experience. They could be annoyed by lack of response from you, or seduced away by your competition.

The point is: “If you are losing customers—do you know why?”

There’s a big difference between customers who are gone and customers you can win back. Unfortunately, most sales managers and salespeople don’t make that distinction.

And many executives neglect to direct their managers to ferret out the reasons why customers are defecting. Why? In the rush to get new business—we ignore lost business—even though in many cases the closing ratio for winning back lost customers can be much higher than the ratio for new business. And the reasons for customer defection are vitally important.

A customer win-back program is valuable for three main reasons (1) you win back “lost” revenue (2) you can uncover potential weaknesses in your organization, and (3) you can discover potential threats from the competition.

4 Steps to Winback Success

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You have what it takes

Yes, you do… if you’ll just get over yourself and do what it takes.

From my experience, 99% of people have everything they need to succeed.  The only thing holding them back is… themselves. 

It’s all about actions…. creating a presence, promoting yourself, finding someone who has a need, showing them you can fulfill the need, confirming that they understand you can fulfill the need for the price you’re proposing, creating a formal  proposal and closing the deal.

Yes, it’s important to have a website, business cards, and a cell phone… that’s it.

The Cowardly Lion already had courage

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If you sometimes feel like you’re stuck, or that your key employees are stuck, and that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, then you’d probably be interested in a fascinating piece in the New York Times that was entitled: “Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?”

In the article, it affirms that ”brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.”

Moreover, “rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.”

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