“Perception of a Difference,” by Wesley W. Zimmerman

 

Imagine yourself sitting with a master teacher, who answers your questions with true stories that hold you until you realize they have given you the insight needed to handle a current challenge. These stories seemingly carry you through the life of a person, moving from sales school to sales professional then branch management to corporate marketing. The journey begins with buying, moves to the true role of marketing from product idea to world wide sales, with customer care as the integral sustaining force.

“I have been in Marketing for twenty years and didn’t know what it really is until I read this book. I read the chapters on marketing first, now I’m reading the chapters on selling.”
R. O. Marketing Coordinator


“This isn’t a book – it is a conversation with the author” fully describes the experience of reading it. You may experience it yourself by reading the first chapter, which follows below.

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Synopsis

We waited in the lobby to meet a surgeon who specializes in knee repair and replacement. We were there on the recommendation of another specialist we like and trust, who repaired my wife’s shoulder. We were at ease and looking forward to learning how Amy’s pain might be eliminated. The door opened.
“Amy, you’re next.”

When the door closed behind us, this person introduced herself. She was the surgeon, not an assistant. As she shook my hand, an overwhelming negative feeling filled me. Her hand felt like a dead fish does when you lift it out of a cold lake. At the end of a 20-minute examination and discussion, we walked to the car.

“That person is never going to work on my knee!”

“I agree. When did you make that decision?”

“By the time we reached the examining room… I felt I was just another project to her, not someone she could care about.”

* * * * *
We were making a buying decision. The knee specialist was selling. Our trusted shoulder specialist was marketing the services of this knee specialist. The sale was lost because of a negative perception of a difference that formed in our minds without our conscious knowledge or control. That is the power of The Perception Of A Difference (POD).

In this book you learn how these perceptions work in every buying decision and how you use them in Marketing, Selling, and Customer Care.
It will be a fun, fascinating, and very useful experience.


The Stories Are True

The stories in this book are true: in some I was a principal participant in others I was a silent observer and listener. The balance, were related to me orally.
Except for certain members of my family and a few people who appear several times because they made a great difference in my life, all names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals who shared these stories with me or were involved in them with me. All the stories are related in the first person though the majority happened to someone else and were related to me. I have used this approach to better pass on to you, the wisdom contained in them. You will learn this wisdom as you read and relate them to happenings in your life, not by preaching from me. Some of the stories will make you laugh; some will bring tears to your eyes; many are unforgettable.

Enjoy!
Wesley W. Zimmerman


The Perception Of A Difference (POD)
The Power In Buying, Marketing, Selling, Customer CareWesley W. Zimmerman, WZA Inc., Scottsdale, Arizona

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Table Of Contents

Synopsis i
The Stories Are True ii
Table Of Contents v

Chapter 1 - Making Dreams Come True
The Power Of The Perception Of A Difference (POD) makes your dreams come true and enables you to make a difference by making the dreams of others come true.

Chapter 2 - Buying
When you understand the process of buying you possess a tool that can improve your life and the lives of others. This is especially true when your work involves Marketing and Selling.

Chapter 3 – Marketing, A Key Block In The Business Arch
Any job in Marketing is a great responsibility because Marketing’s function and responsibilities in a business are widely misunderstood. This misunderstanding is often one of the causes of problems that result in low sales and management disagreements.

Chapter 4 – An Example From The Past
The easiest way to see the breadth as well as the gross detail of Marketing in a company is by seeing an example. This one is a beauty.

Chapter 5 – Creating Awareness
Now that you know what Marketing really does, it is time to discuss what many people think is the only thing it does.

Chapter 6 – Selling
Selling takes over in the buying process when interactive dialog with a human is necessary for you to complete the buying decision. It is the realm of the professional salesperson. This chapter is designed to give you an overall understanding of the sales profession. The emphasis is on the practical and
what actually works. You will find it very interesting if you are considering a career in sales, are selling currently, or are responsible for a sales operation.

Chapter 7 - People Educating Each Other
Selling is an educational process which the professional salesperson executes effortlessly every day. These stories help you do it well and reveal the rich rewards of this lifetime effort.

Chapter 8 - Moving From Peddler To Counselor
In the process of asking questions, you generate new ideas in your and the customer’s mind. This moves you up the four levels of sales professional without you realizing it’s happening. As you read these stories compare them to your
recent experiences and discover how much you’ve grown.

Chapter 9 - Succeeding Without Rushing, Pushing, Shoving
I believe I was guided into sales as a calling wherein I could help others. Dad enjoyed selling, as did the several 100 salespeople I worked with through the years. Why then were salespeople ranked so low and rarely considered to be in a profession?

Chapter 10 - Gardeners And Those That Garden And Pursue
It takes a special person to do both and be happy. The Gardener may have the toughest job of all without its being recognized. As you listen to their stories you see some powerful professionals at work.

Chapter 11 – Customer Care
Customer Care and Customer service: when I am a customer, I feel the difference. Customers come in two flavors: the Arch falls without both of them.

Chapter 12 – Wes’ Last Word

The Four Eternal Laws Of Sales Success, page 235
Acknowledgments, page 236
Copyrights, page 240
Dad’s Sayings, page 241
List Of Stories, page 243

The Author, page 245

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Chapter 1 - Making Dreams Come True

The sale of something is essential to the happiness of every individual and the existence of every enterprise, be it business, educational, religious, political, or other. Important personal endeavors, including choosing a marriage partner, maintaining a friendship, and getting a job require selling. Selling requires a buyer, reaching the buyer requires marketing in some form, and when the sale is made the customer must be cared for in a way that ensures s/he will buy from the business again and also tell others to.

Buying, Marketing, Selling, and Customer Care are key blocks in the Arch of business and personal success. They are held in place by Trust, the keystone in the Arch and supported by Customers. You can’t have any one without the others and they all depend on the power of the perception of a difference.

The Perception Of A Difference (POD)

The very first time you saw or spoke with your best friend, you formed positive perceptions of each other. You have been strengthening those perceptions and making a difference to each other ever since. Those perceptions formed without your conscious effort. You justified them after they formed. The same process occurs the first time you walk into a restaurant, talk to a salesperson, accountant, attorney, candidate for office, or anyone. We make decisions and act upon them based on perceptions. That is the power of The Perception Of A Difference.
This book, and the others in the series, shows you how the Perception Of A Difference works in the interaction between someone who wants to buy and someone with something to sell. In every story the customer has a dream that the seller can make come true, while satisfying a dream of the seller in the process.


The Business Arch

I grappled for days on end searching for a way to picture the interrelationships of the functions that exist in every business[1]; then realized the arch was the answer. Think of an arch supporting your business if you own it or the company you work in and are part of.

An arch is a very strong structure that gracefully supports a load when all the blocks are in place. So long as all blocks are viable it will stand strong without mortar or glue but when even one block weakens the arch falls; no matter how strong the mortar or glue. The blocks in the Business Arch are functions performed by people; e.g., you and I, in whatever company and organization we work in. We are the blocks in the Arch as we perform the functions of the block we are in at any point in time. We strengthen or weaken the block we are in by what we say and how we say it and what we do and how we do it.

The Arch is shown here with all major business functions. This volume of the Perception Of A Difference series gives you in-depth coverage of four: Buying, Marketing, Selling, and Customer Care. New customers appear throughout with their real life perceptions and reactions. Customer Care is in many of the stories. It sneaks in without your realizing it. Its importance is illustrated in chapter 11.

The role of Trust, the keystone of the Arch, is woven throughout the stories. You will recognize it even if you forget to look for it, but if you don’t, Chapter 12’s story will convince you of its importance.

Making Dreams Come True

The perception of a difference gives you and me the power to make dreams come true. Your positive perception of a difference opens the door for you by causing others to accept you; after that, when you make a positive difference to them they make your dreams come true. You cannot make your dreams come true without the help of other people. It is always a cooperative effort, which fails when you and your team don’t do the job you are capable of.

Almost every dream involves a buying process. Every buying process involves Marketing, Selling, and Customer Care. Different people participate in (or are responsible for) each one. The three functions are inextricably intertwined in bringing the buying process and the dream that triggered it, to a successful, happy conclusion. When this happens the dream that triggered it comes true, along with your dreams and the dreams of many other people.

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Selling Is A Calling

I went into selling because I felt called to do so. I quickly found that I liked it and received much satisfaction from doing it successfully. The “high” of landing a sale and depositing the commission check was only part of it. I knew that something deeper and more important was creating my satisfaction and sense of usefulness. I didn’t know what it was until…

We had landed a sale for a very large system. Its value exceeded my quota for the year by 52 percent. It was a record breaker for me and my team. It turned out to be a record breaker for the company. It took 18 months from the first face-to-face call to contract signing. After the third face-to-face call I was convinced that we could get the order if we did everything right. That called for planning, which we were used to as a team.

We stretched white wrapping paper along the length of one wall in the support team’s office and fastened it with masking tape. On it we laid out our plan to land that order. At the far right end of the paper, at the top, we wrote a date 17 months in the future, under which we printed, “Contract signing.” Under that we put the name of the person who had the pen power to do it. Then we asked ourselves, “What is the last thing that must happen before he can sign?” The board of directors, or at least its finance committee, has to meet and approve it. We wrote that on the paper just to the left of contract signing and put a tentative date above it. Then we moved to the left of that entry and wrote down what had to happen before that meeting, and put a tentative date down. We continued that process until we had worked our way back to the current date at the far left end of the chart and wrote “Prepare Plan Chart.”

That chart remained on the wall until after the contract was signed. The chart included who we would call on and when, for each week in the 18-month sales effort. If we didn’t know a name, we put in the title of the person we knew or guessed would have to be involved. We knew it was an educational process so we listed the subjects that would be discussed and taught at each meeting. We listed the people who would do the teaching. We would do the lion’s share of the work. We also would use district office people, the District Manager (my boss), experts from Headquarters Marketing, Headquarters Engineering, the Region Manager, and the Vice President of Customer Support. We informed each of these people that they would be needed, and we gave them an approximate date to put on their planning calendars. It took more than two days to complete the plan chart. We implemented it and kept adjusting the plan as we went along.
Seventeen months later, when I walked into our office with the signed contract, we celebrated and laughed and cried. I asked the receptionist to call us only if it was an emergency, and we all took two days off.

Six weeks later I was in headquarters for a meeting. On the second day the Vice President of Manufacturing asked me to join him when the day’s sessions ended.

“I want to show you the assembly line for your system. I think you will find it interesting.”

We arrived at the beginning of the line, and he introduced me to the person working at that point in the process and explained what was being done. He then took me to the next position and did the same thing. Each person I met was obviously and sincerely glad to meet and talk with me. They thanked me for getting the order and assured me they would build it properly. When we reached the end of the line I was impressed and moved. Then…

“You have given 50 families work for five months. I wanted you to meet them and let them tell you how much they appreciate it.”

That hit me right between the eyes. I was instantly filled with a feeling best described as a combination of modesty and satisfaction. When I got to my hotel room later, I knelt and said “Thank you; now I know why I’m in sales and why it is so satisfying.”

* * * * *

If you are in sales now, have you had a similar experience?

My hunch is that you have and will remember it soon. If not, I’m sure you will. It will give you a sense of worth like no other.

For me selling became another calling; a work that was good and honorable because I helped others and made their lives better. In doing this I also earned a very good income and had a whale of a lot of fun. The hundreds of people I worked with enriched my life greatly.

We Made A Difference

A dream shared by three top management people triggered the process of buying that large system. They were responsible for the health of a large manufacturing company. They needed to slow rising costs and improve responsiveness to customers. This required better product design and improved customer care after the sale. If they could do this they would maintain competitive position and ensure continuing work for several hundred employees.

As a result of normal prospecting, I came on the scene at the time these discussions were in full swing and asked questions. When the third call ended, I was pretty certain that one of our systems would really help them to achieve their goals. The plan on the wall in our office was a plan for making them educate us fully and we to educate them fully. The plan chart had periodic checkpoints where we would check to be certain our system was right for them. At each checkpoint a “No” would have ended the effort.

Every person that came before the customer, in 17 months, made a difference. They strengthened and maintained the positive perception of a difference the buyers perceived. In landing the sale we made a difference to many people we would never see or know. In addition to the “50 families” and the customer’s several hundred employees, there were the people who created the purchased parts in the system and the sales teams that sold them to our company and on and on. We helped their dreams and ours to come true. Buying, Marketing, Selling, and Customer Care intertwined to make it happen.

Buying, Marketing, Selling, and Customer Care are processes, a fact that may be surprising. Once I understood this, it enabled me to be more productive and increase my earnings with less effort per sale. It also made me a much wiser and savvy buyer. The processes function in every buying and selling situation; personal, retail, or wholesale. They function without our awareness.

The following chapters will show you these processes in action so you can be more successful in your life endeavors.

[1] The noun form of business is used interchangeably with the noun company in this book.

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