Blog

Booking Information:


For more information on Charles books and products, please contact Julie@cmarcus.com for more information.

Blog

Below are a collection of some of my latest thoughts.


Get rid of negative people

I did a posting on one of my social media feeds recently about negative people and getting them out of your life. I had a huge response. It hit a nerve and certainly resonated with people. For me personally, I had to do that in my life a long time ago, it is not always easy but I have never regretted the decision, in fact, it is one of the best things I ever did and still do today. Life is tough enough, negative people suck the life out of you. They bring you down, are toxic. You cant allow yourself to be influenced that way. Hang out with people who will bring you up, not who will bring you down.


Interesting Approach

I went to a bank I deal with this morning, it is not my main bank anymore but I keep a small account with them and make transactions from time to time. This morning I went in to do a deposit and the cashier told me I would have to wait  five business days for the check to clear. That had never happended before to me. I asked why and was informed I was not a regular customer these days. Interesting I would be penalised for that. I was then asked which bank I dealt with the most, when I told her, the answer was why dont you do this transaction at that bank then. I told her I would, asked to speak to the manager and closed my account. You would have thought the person would have tried to win my business back instead of treating me like she did. Now they have lost what little buiness I did with them. the manager was not much help either. I say good riddance but shabby to treat people that way.  Value everybody you do business with, big or small.


Taking Responsibility

I recently ordered some business cards from a supplier. I felt they were not done satisfactory. I was disappoined and I contacted the company who did the cards to tell them so.  A strange thing happened that surprised me. The person I spoke too was receptive, showed empathy and was genuinly interested in my situation. He cared about what had transpired and when I explained it in detail, he agreed with me that they had made a mistake and gave me some options for putting it right at no expense to me. How sad it is, in this day and age that somebody taking responsibility and having a willlingness to put it right should be the exception rather than the rule and get you excited.

Usually one has to scream and shout, threaten legal or social media action to get a company to take action.  It seems just common sense and good business to help the customer to be satisfied but as the old saying goes “what’s common sense is not always common anymore”


One Word Goes a Long Way

Consistency is a word I don’t see often enough in my day to day activities. I see people delivering it fantastically well like when we hired someone to do our deck last year in our backyard but did not see it when we followed up last week to obtain a quote to do more work from the same person. The person did not even show up for an apt. I see it sometimes with great hotels, airlines, stores, restaurants, airports but that is the exception not the norm. Sadly again it is very much hit and miss, hot and cold. It truly baffles me. The truth is the world is surrounded by lack of consistency, service at best is truly average, people having good days then not so good, sales professionals being on one day and off the next. In my work I like to think that I am a consistent performer, one of the characteristics I have found with sucessful companies and people is consistency.


An Issue of Sour Grapes

I recently updated my website. I had five venders completing for the task, I choose who I considered the best company in the end for the job and am delighted and very pleased with the work and results.  I let the other companies know of my decision, thanked them for their interest in working with me and wished them well in the future, something I always do. One of the companies had expressed an interest to see my site after it was up and running so I sent them a link. Response was nice design and then a tirade of what in their opinion was not right with the search engine optimization on my site and in block capitals, the words I would NEVER have sent a site out like this. In England where I am from we would call this sour grapes or being a poor loser. In business today, always take the high ride, never diss the competition. If this would have been me, a better response, Hi Charles, great site, thanks for sharing, a few suggestions re your SEO, if interested please let me know, maybe I can be of service and help to you in this regard. Again great site…..This way, maybe we would have done business together, the door was open, the way it was sent to me, we will never do business, I have lost all respect for that person. The irony was some of their comments were valid, some not as we were still in the testing stage at that time, but will now use someone else to help us where we feel we need it.


Welcome

Welcome to my new blog and updated website, looking forward to sharing information with you all and to recieving your feedback and comments. My thoughts for today are on looking inwardly to the things we have rather than outwardly to the things we don’t have. The old saying the grass is always greener on the other side rings so true. Average sales people are notorious for complaining what they don’t have in their territory, the supposedly innovative magical products their competition have to offer and sell, if only!! basically just an excuse for why sales are not going as well as they should be. Champion sales professionals just get on with it, they focus on what they have, their own strengths, abilities and unique products and services they offer, they let the competition worry about them, not vice versa.