Brian walks into a deli at 11:15 am and orders the lunch special he heard advertised on the radio just a few moments ago. The young girl behind the counter has no idea what he’s talking about. “We don’t have a special on the Italian Hero,” she says. “Yes, you do,” he insists. “I just heard it on 101.3” “Well, nobody told ME about any special!” she snaps back. “I can’t do that unless my boss tells me, and he won’t be here until 11:30.” The advertising did its job. Brian’s there, mouth watering, money in hand. Only one thing stands between the deli owner and success: the person behind the counter. If only someone in charge had told the young lady what was being advertised, there would be a seamless and positive experience. Instead, Brian’s probably going to leave angry, the young lady still doesn’t know the special, and someone else is bound to come in five minutes later and ask for the same thing. Where’s the knowledge gap? Where does it start, and what happened along the way? Advertising does work. It’s the communication dysfunction inside a business that can kill off a great ad campaign, slowly and silently. As an advertising rep in the Joliet area many years ago, I worked with a local fireplace and gas grill store to create a Father’s Day grill campaign. The ads were good, he ran them in several local media, and I was looking forward to hearing about the results he was bound to receive. After the ads ran, he told me it was a flop. “I didn’t sell nearly the number of grills I had projected. Those ads you created didn’t work.” It wasn’t until days later that I learned of four separate people that had come into the store during the campaign. Three of them waited several minutes, and walked out because no one had bothered to help them. The fourth left because the poor young salesperson on the floor didn’t know anything about the products and their features. If four people that I knew walked out without a grill (and felt like they wasted their time!), how many others had the very same experience? We’ll never know. If only the deli and the grill store would have clued their people in as to what was on sale, how it was being advertised, and why people should be excited about it, the ads would have paid off many times over for them. The most important sale you’ll ever make is inside your own building. The key is knowing what to do and how to get it done. Selling The InsideTM is a process Andrew Corbus and I developed and detailed in our book, Reality Sells. It’s a regular system of communicating important details to your staff that goes beyond traditional training; it actually helps them to be an active part of the company’s success. It’s important for a number of reasons: Poor service is everywhere, and training is expensive. People are quick to say it’s the younger generation that’s at fault, but we find that the problem is often a simple lack of applied focus on the part of the business owner to excite the employee about delivering value to each customer. It’s a different story when each team member knows exactly what each is contributing to the success of the organization. Your staff may not see or hear the ads you run. Many business owners and managers assume that their employees read, watch, and listen to the same things as their customers. The problem is that employees often have very different lifestyles than those they serve. By making sure your people see and hear all of your advertising messages, they can deliver the promises the ads are making, whether they see them in the marketplace or not. Employees don’t like to feel stupid. In our deli example above, the girl behind the counter probably feels under-educated, out of touch, and frustrated because she doesn’t know about the special of the day. Employees who feel like they’re up to speed on the latest information about their work are generally more satisfied, more engaged, and deliver more value to your customers. Customer expectations are higher than ever. We are the fussiest, most demanding generation of consumers in history. At the same time, every business category now has several competitors fighting to be king of the hill. Service has become one of the most important differentiators in the battle for business, and having a system in place allows you to compete with much bigger players. In a nutshell, the Selling The InsideTM system involves seven distinct steps: • Showcasing your current advertising to your staff • Discussing the features and benefits of the advertised products • Giving your staff some talking points on those products • Reviewing the performance of the staff since your last session • Rewarding that performance • Setting a new short-term goal • Conducting a brief training session on a fundamental service skill, such as eye contact, greeting, or handling upset customers. When done properly, Selling The InsideTM delivers a higher return on investment from your advertising, because it closes the knowledge gap between management and front-line staff, which allows everyone to serve customers best – and close more business. In today’s challenging economic climate, it’s more important than ever.