Create face time for
every customer
Brooks appreciates slow-and-steady, old-school selling techniques. He knows the key to winning, retaining and, in some
cases, regaining customers is ongoing, open communication.
But that takes time.
“It’s finding the time to speak with your sizeable customers or
new customers you want to bring on board,” he says. “Find the
time to really listen to their concerns and opportunities. It’s
just old-fashioned communication. There’s not any magic or
secrets there.”
Yet in an age dominated by convenient, immediate electronic
communication, finding time to physically visit customers has
become increasingly difficult — but more important than ever.
“Have face-to-face time,” Brooks says. “Have dinners together. If you can, recreate together.
“One of the greatest things we ever did here when we were a
smaller company was annually we would do a raft trip down to
the New River Gorge in West Virginia,” he says. “We would
invite anyone who assisted us in having a successful year. It
could be a banker, a customer, a lawyer, a supplier. We’d bring
them into Nelsonville and have a cookout at my house or my
brother’s house and walk them through the business and show
them what we’d done that year and then we’d get in the bus
and go down to West Virginia. We’d spend the night and whitewater on the New River. I may have a retailer in the boat and a
leather supplier in the boat and the mayor of Nelsonville in the
boat. So you’d really get to know people and build trust. Many
people help build your successes. So I remember that as a really good building stone for our business.”
Today, such outings are done almost exclusively with Rocky’s
largest customers — but they’re still an integral part of building and maintaining those relationships.
“We’ve got a half-dozen or a dozen key account executives
who have to reach out and do some things with their special
customers,” Brooks says.
“If a salesman has not visited a customer annually, it’s a problem,” he says. “It’s a big problem. We have a lot of customers.
In our Georgia [Boot] division alone, we have 15,000 customers. So if they’re a small customer, we may only see them
once a year. If they’re a big customer, we’re going to see them
every 30 days. We want to be there, listening to their concerns
and working closely with them.
“It’s my belief that you have to have quality face time and be
honest,” Brooks says. “Don’t tell them something you can’t deliver on. Don’t try to overinventory them. Be their partner.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about us working together to
solve problems and make money. We both have to make
money. It’s pretty simple, really.”
HOW TO REACH: Rocky Brands Inc., (740) 753-9100 or www.rockybrands.com
