I recently bought a new phone.  Sometimes I buy things because I need the novelty and all of the short term gratification that comes with a new purchase.  I am still enamored by this phone nearly ten days later.  This was not just any phone nor was it any store.  

We are in the worst global recession in nearly 70 years.  Consumer spending is at an all time low, and unemployment is still growing by 400K plus people per month here in the states.  Circuit City recently shuttered its local store and many others.  Starbucks is closing 700 locations and two local car dealerships are shuttered after fifty plus years.  The normal bustling suburbs now look like a special on Frontline about an old factory town gone bad.

Back to the phone.  I went to the store at an off hour so it wouldn't be too busy.  Wrong!  I counted 40 plus customers and over 15 employees.  The employees wear different color shirts that designate their role to make this place sing.  The first thing I noticed is the lighting.  It was perfect, hardly any shadows anywhere.  There is music playing but it is just at the right level, like a great server at a restaraunt that you hardly notice but tip twenty five percent.  All of the products are on display to use, explore, and test.  There is no pressure selling but there is an unbeleivable environment for spending!

 I met a concierge and told her what I wanted to.  She asked me a few questions, offered some helpful information, and told me that I would soon meet with a specialist.  I then met Lou about two minutes later and he said he would be happy to help me.  Great, Lou seemed like a good guy.

Problem....Liz the concierge told Lou (yeah, thats right, Lou and the other specialists have so many appointments that they need reminders all of the time about their schedule) that he had an appointment in 16 minutes and that he wouldn't be able to help me until 4:30.  It was 2:44 in the afternoon.  Lets review, I am ready to plunk down a couple of hundred bucks, sign a contract and leave.  The demand at this place is so high that the answer I had for a short second was, come back in one hour and forty five minutes and we can see you.  Mind you, Lou and Liz were incredibly nice and helpful, but hey, don't you people know who I am??

Fortunately Lou squeezed me in  had me out of there in 12 minutes and was early for his 3 o'clock.  I spent 200.00 and left with a new phone, but its not just any phone.

I was at the Apple store.  Thats right, the only place in North America's second largest shopping mall that has a line that regularly stretcches around the corner for premium products that you cannot buy anywhere else.  If you've had the experience of buying in these stores, you know that the employees are passionate, knowledgable and most importantly, users of the products. 

What does any of this have to do with structured cabling sales you ask....not much on the surface.  We don't work in a retail model.  We don't sell paper thin laptops or really great computers.  We sell passive copper and fiber systems and struggle to explain to our friends what we do and how our products work.  You know what I mean.  Your parents or uncles just give up and say you work "in computers"!  

Give some thought to the environment you create when you are working with a prospect.  How do you present your solution and deliver a message that separates you from your competition.  Are you creating the ideal buying enviroment for your customer?  In our business, this environment might mean eliminating risks for your prospect and using your creative strengths to do so.  

Referrals are a great start.  Ask one of your better clients to write a letter or call a prospect on your behalf.  Address performance issues by engaging a specialist form your company and a financial professional to talk about depreciation, leasing, or other creative financial solutions that make your client's risk levels diminish.  Tell your clients abut the amount of money your other clients spend every year to support a poorly planned cable plant or better yet, show them the actual costs and pictures.  This is not fear based selling, this is an asset to your prospect.

Apple gets people to line up for their products, pay more, and come back over and over.  Their stores are beautiful, their products are innovative and functionally awesome, and people use their products everyday.  Here is the scary part abut their growth potential, Apple computers make up less than 5 percent of the computer market. 

How attractive are you and your products to your market.  Are clients and prospects talking about their experience with you after the sale?  

How are you staying RELEVANT?