BKBG Blog

It’s been a wild ride for most BKBG Shareholders and Preferred Vendor Partners during the last three years.  Many expect the coming year to return to “normal,” or an activity level comparable to 2019.  While showrooms may be expecting a return to normal, will customers feel the same way?  Customer service expert Shep Hyken does not agree.  He believes that customers will continue to expect more and relying on the status quo will not meet expectations.

In researching his new book, The Bezo Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman, Carmine Gallo identified common tactics transformative leaders use to effectively communicate their messages.  Several include:

Seth Godin is one of the most admired and respected minds in marketing today. He is the author of more than a dozen books and publishes a daily must-read blog that can help anyone who runs a business. What makes Seth special is that he looks at the world through different lenses, constantly challenging the status quo to take fresh new approaches that often work. He was among the first marketing minds to understand that the way people purchase had changed and recognized that it is necessary to change messaging to effectively respond to the paradigm shift that had taken place.

This is the time of year that many people consider making a resolution to improve their life, business, relationships, health or a host of other reasons. However, the odds say that most resolutions won't be successful. According to one study, only 8 percent of New Year's resolutions are kept. How can you beat the odds?  Recognize the reasons why most resolutions fail.

A big shout out to Mitch Joel, social media guru and thought leader, who offered advice on How to Have the Best Day Possible.  It struck a chord, because most business owners have days when they come to work and find that 10 to 12 hours after arriving, they did not accomplish anything that they wanted to get done that day.  That’s why Joel’s advice strikes a resonate chord.

Robert Cialdini’s Influence is an iconic work that explained how to motivate people.  And that’s what showroom sales professionals do every day.  Sixteen years after Influence first hit the bookshelves, Cialdini has penned another seminal work entitled Pre-Suason: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade.  Pre-Suason just may be better than Influence and a more than worthwhile read for anyone who wants to increase their sales, performance, and professional sense of accomplishment.

This is the time of year that many owners and managers are tasked with reviewing the performance of their team members.  Many year-end reviews are not much more than a compensation review.  How can you provide feedback that motivates your team members to up their game?  Start with establishing goals for the review.  Typically, performance reviews are designed to provide positive feedback on how well someone is performing and provide guidance that will help the team member develop professionally.  Multiple studies have found that work experience is responsible for about 70% of professional development learning necessary to climb the career ladder.  The other 30% is divided between formal courses and learning opportunities and life experiences or those activities people engage in outside of the workplace.

Have you wondered why your clients select your showroom? Is there a magic moment or zero moment of truth that puts someone over the edge and motivates them to sign on the dotted line? Decision-making is truly paradoxical says Duke University Professor Dan Ariely. Ariely is a best-selling author who also teaches psychology and behavioral economics and conducts extensive research on how and why people make decisions.  Ariely claims that most Americans behave as if we have no objectives, goals or aspirations. A large majority of us don’t do what we should of what we say we want to do. We tend to overeat and don’t exercise enough. We don’t develop three-, five- and seven-year plans for our lives. We have subscriptions that we don’t use but don’t cancel. There are lots of don’ts in most of our lives.