Details. It always boils down to getting them right. It’s one of the toughest concepts for young AEs to grasp, but from the client’s perspective, it’s the difference between getting a raise or losing their job. We have to show clients we are always paying attention to the details. Here’s a simple way…that we often get wrong.
View Video Transcript
Hey everybody, Drew McLellan here from Agency Management Institute, this week coming to you from Kansas City. One of my favorite things to do is to be a guest on other people's podcasts. I love the conversation, I love sharing what I know, I love getting connected to a new audience, and I know as a podcast host how important it is to be able to find great guests to share with your audience. So, like a typical podcast, when I am on someone's show, I often will get an email when the show is ready to go live, and in the email, there'll be a request to share the podcast episode. And sometimes there'll be assets, visuals that they want me to share as well which I'm always happy to do. But about 7 out of 10 times, there's a problem. And the problem is they've misspelled my name. And my last name, McLellan, And my last name, McLellan, invites all kinds of misspellings. A lot of times the L's are turned into N's. A lot of times there's a second C or a D at the end, but nonetheless, none of those are my name. And so I have to write back to the host and say, "Hey, happy to share, but can you please correct the assets to spell my name correctly?" Or even sometimes it's in the URL of the episode. So the assets might have my name spelled correctly but the URL is wrong. And you know what, if I'm on someone's podcast partially to be helpful to them but also obviously partially to promote Agency Management Institute and the work that we do, it's kind of important to me that my name gets spelled properly so people can find me. It's not really an ego play, it's really a "I want to be findable and so they need to be able to spell my last name." But what it also says to me is that the podcast host and their team don't really know who I am, the podcast host and their team don't really know who I am, don't really value my contributions, and aren't doing a really great job at double checking the data before they send it out. So, one of the things that I think has happened, especially with our younger employees is that, because of spell check and other tools that we just take for granted, people are not as careful at double checking certain facts before they build something or they send something out. And there's one thing you and I both know, which is people are very sensitive about their name. So one of the things that I think we have to infuse through our organization is the understanding that whether it's a client or a client's customer or however we are dealing with someone else, when we are using someone's name, we have an obligation to double-check. So, is it spelled properly? Are we using the right nickname? So, for example, I know if somebody ever calls me Andrew versus Drew, I don't know them, or they're trying to sell me something and they bought my name off of a list. So it's not just the spelling of the name but it's also the proper name. Is their name Robert but they go by Bob? Is there an extra C or D or L or something in their last name? Those little details, especially for someone who has a last name that is often mispronounced or misspelled, those little details get noticed, and are appreciated when you get them right and rub your audience when you get them wrong. So, one of the conversations, as silly and simple as it sounds that I think you should have inside your organization is the importance of someone's name and making sure that that is something that we always double check, before we send anything out to a client or a client's customer. All right? Just a thought, I'll be back next week. See you then.
