Chapter 17 Customer Profile: Public VS Private Ownership

Customer resources, surname "public" or surname "private"?Such a question, in front of managers, most of the answers are so high-sounding: support "public ownership"!However, many management situations show that enterprise customer resources, which depend on the acquisition and use of specific human resources, exist in the form of non-physical information, and have real commercial value. In practice, it is often difficult for you to define the start and end, Affiliation and direction of control. We embarked on a ship that "knows the direction of the wind, but does not know its course"...

Going into a few "scenarios" of examples, let us see clearly this problem that often makes "the boss angry, the employee wronged, and the customer in a dilemma". Tom: I opened this mountain, I planted this tree, and the customer resource is mine from head to toe! Tom angrily hung up the phone call from the company's HR manager. During the meeting at the headquarters last month, the boss had already greeted him: get ready to transfer him to another new market.Within two weeks, Xiao Liu was indeed sent over to wait for the transition. Tom didn't give Xiao Liu any good looks, and it was useless for the HR manager to interfere.The phone rang again, and it was the boss.

"Xiao Liu has been with you for many days, why didn't you take him to the market once?! Didn't visit a single customer?!" The boss called on the phone. "I've been busy with business in the past two days, and I've been on business trips a lot, so I've talked to Xiao Liu about the general situation. Let him get familiar with the city first." Tom looked for reasons to explain. "No, you have to run with him, let him enter the role as soon as possible! You also have to take office as soon as possible!" The boss's tone was stronger than his strength, and he knew how to call down.

"I still think it's inappropriate to transfer me now! The market has been developed for more than a year, and it's just on track..." When Tom first joined the company, he heard old salesmen say that the company likes to play this kind of "substitution game". I didn't expect it to happen to me too. "You and Xiao Liu are people that the company wants to train, don't think too much, let Xiao Liu get familiar with the situation as soon as possible!" The boss emphasized. "When you sent me here, the situation was different than it is now! My eyes were dark, and I ran away by myself..." Tom's voice also became louder, he felt that the company was doing too badly!

Tom was assigned to this area a year and a half ago.The situation at that time was: the company did not have an agent or a dealership here; asked ten people, and ten of them had never heard of their brand;The company gave me nothing but a bundle of product manuals.I remember the first time a customer placed an order, after I visited more than 20 times in a row, they asked for the goods dubiously, and as a result, half of the products sent by the company were wrong.You see, it is such a company. Now, more than a year later, there are agents, dealerships have developed to the county, and there are always sales that can be sold every month even in the off-season.In this market, I really used my "foot" to run out of each family!Thinking of this, Tom felt a little sad.

He had already had a problem with the company.I feel that the company ignores the value of business people like them, and treats salesmen like excavators outside, regardless of whether they live or die. When the market opens, they don't care how the predecessors planted trees. Tom thinks, he is soft but not hard, he brings the market and customers to the company, and even the customers often say to him: "Only recognize him and not others".If it goes on like this, if it is not "pleasant", he will still let the client "go" with him, without any guilt... In fact, there are quite a few companies like Tom who "have peace of mind" and regard customer resources as their own. Many companies are often hit hard by this, and even their performance plummets.

To avoid such a thing, we really cannot blame employees one-sidedly, because this is not only a unilateral issue of professional ethics, but also involves the issue of the value evaluation of employees by enterprises and business owners and the return of benefits.Because, although customer resources are valuable, the behavior of mining and improving customer resources should also be recognized and rewarded accordingly.Therefore, from the vicious incidents in which many employees "connected to the nest" of customer resources after leaving the company, the main enterprise should think carefully: If you don't want your employees to take something away, then what have you created for your employees?It's a causal thing.

Mr. Xia: The company is regarded as a supermarket by the employees, and everything that can be taken away is taken away, and the company is always the one that is injured! Mr. Xia didn't want to believe the feedback and decided to make another phone call to the client himself.Although from the day Da Feng left, he felt a little uneasy. Mr. Xia: "Mr. Li, as I said yesterday, the quotation was finalized by the two parties at the beginning, and we have already made a lot of preparations here. It will not affect us due to changes in people..." Mr. Li: "Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not because of Dafeng! It's just that we think we need to discuss the price, otherwise..."

Mr. Xia: "Mr. Li, you know, our two families have been dealing with each other for a long time. We really want to sign this order. As long as there is a little room, we really will..." Mr. Li: "Old Xia, after comparing, we think it is necessary to pay... in terms of price, see if we can make it..." Mr. Xia couldn't accept that number, because it wasn't even the cost price. It seemed that Mr. Li knew the reserve price here, and he was obviously scared off. Mr. Li: "Otherwise, then, if there is a chance in the future..." This client, Mr. Xia, asked Dafeng to take the lead in tracking it for more than half a year, and the whole company spent a lot of manpower and material resources on it.Not long ago, Dafeng had an unhappiness with himself because of the salary increase, and his mood took a turn for the worse. At the end of the month, he resigned and left. He couldn't stay no matter what, and left full of resentment.

What Mr. Xia was worried about also happened. As soon as Da Feng left, the client changed his face. In the end, Mr. Xia did not sign the supply contract.A month later, he knew exactly that the customer had chosen another brand of product, and that company was Dafeng's new company.Mr. Xia has a feeling that the child he raised has been taken away by others. In fact, Mr. Xia still pays attention to customer development in the form of group visits as much as possible, but in fact, business backbones like Da Feng still have considerable influence.Losing this order now is only an obvious loss now, and other hidden losses are yet to come.

Mr. Xia's new worry will still exist, because there are still several business leaders like Da Feng in the company.What better way does he have to deal with these "jumping jobs with customer resources"? Some people say that the "non-competition" agreements signed by many companies and employees can prevent the outflow of customer resources and other valuable resources of the original company after employees leave?In fact, "running, leaking, dripping" is still uncontrollable, because it is just a technical means to solve the problem. The key is that the enterprise itself establishes a system of working together under the illumination of its own brand, so that every process, every link, and every employee becomes a "point" in the system that cannot work independently, so that Enterprise resources become an indivisible and removable whole.What can be taken away and separated are only "false resources", and the "system" that cannot be taken away is the real "resource" of the enterprise.We know that the establishment of this system is difficult for many small and medium-sized enterprises in development, and there will be a long process, but other than that, what better way can really solve the problem? What is the solution to this problem? Boss Luo: I just want to do my business, not "private" or "public", nor anyone's "resources"! Boss Luo recently encountered a dilemma. He is an agent of a brand of sheet metal, and the manager of the manufacturer's office in his area is Lao Wang. He was able to win the agency of this brand by himself, and it is now so prosperous that Lao Wang really helped a lot. But today, Lao Wang brought up an idea that made Boss Luo difficult. Lao Wang felt that helping the factory was hunting on someone else's mountain, and no matter how much he hunted, it was someone else's.I wanted to do it myself, but I was afraid of the high risk and didn't dare to get involved, so I took a small factory's miscellaneous brand and made it myself as an "amateur", and wanted to distribute it through Boss Luo's network. Lao Wang: "I know, you don't like this small brand. You can do it for half a year first. If you can make money, everyone is welcome. If there is no market, stop." Boss Luo: "It's not that I won't help you, I'm afraid that if your factory finds out, you won't revoke my exclusive agency!" Lao Wang: "How do you know that I'm here..." Boss Luo: "Hey, how could the factory not know! You are not the only one in your factory, and you are not..." Lao Wang: "Stop! Lao Luo, you forgot that your 'exclusive agent' authorization letter was delivered to your door, right?!" Boss Luo: "I can't forget, I can't forget! But you are making me difficult." Lao Wang: "Boss Luo, you are getting bigger now, forget about the past!" Boss Luo: "Is this good, let me introduce another person to help you sell?" Lao Wang: "To be honest, in our place now, you are the only one who is not only big, but also fine! I'm looking for you!" Boss Luo: "You..." Boss Luo felt a little dumbfounded, as if he had become someone else's private property.When I was small, I was like a burden to others; now that I am bigger, I have become a "resource" for others to fight for. He only understands normal "business skills", and the current situation has made him confused.The enterprise regards him as a resource of the manufacturer, and Lao Wang regards him as his private property. If it belongs to "private", his boss Luo obviously does not abide by the contract; if it belongs to "public", he, Lao Luo, seems a little bit unkind.Who should he belong to? Unexpectedly, customer resources, surname "public" or "private"?In a specific case, "Boss Luo" was forced into a dilemma by "Old Wang".What is the problem? A salesperson said that when a customer invites me to dinner, I am happy to attend the table because "I help him get rich"; When it becomes normal and indifferent, in fact, we have subconsciously regarded customers as "private resources" that can bring "interest" to ourselves.It is this kind of thinking that makes us use the two criteria of "public interest" and "selfish desire" to consider customers at the same time. If our managers, as well as executives who are mixed with selfish desires like Lao Wang, only proceed from their own single interests and imagine customers as inherent private resources, will everyone really be happy? There is only one principle for customers to choose, that is: his own business principles! Therefore, the final dilemma will definitely not be the customer, because he only "surnames" himself! Customer resources, is the surname "public" or "private"?Let more professionals think about it in more marketing practices...