Kevin Price, Host of the Price of Business on Business Talk 1110 AM KTEK (on Bloomberg’s home in Houston) recently interviewed Jeb Blount.
About the interviewee
Jeb Blount, CEO of Sales Gravy, has more than 25 years of experience with Fortune 500s. Under Jeb’s leadership, Sales Gravy has become a global leader in sales enablement solutions, including sales recruitment and staffing, sales on-boarding automation, custom sales training program development and delivery, and sales coaching. Sales Gravy’s flagship website, SalesGravy.com, is the online sales employment niche leader in market share, and one the most visited sales specific websites.
Jeb is the author of six books, including People Follow You (Wiley 2012). He was recently named one of the world’s 50 Most Influential Sales and Marketing Leaders by Top Sales Magazine, and in a March 2014 Forbes article, as one of the Top 30 Social Selling Influencers in the world.
Tell me about your firm (number of employees, location, type of companies you work with, etc.).
Sales Gravy is a global leader in sales enablement solutions, including sales recruitment and staffing, sales on-boarding automation, custom sales training program development and delivery, and sales coaching. Sales Gravy’s flagship website, SalesGravy.com, is the online sales employment niche leader in market share and the most visited sales specific website on the planet. We have 16 employees working with us worldwide.
Our headquarters is located in the Augusta, GA metro. We have more than 8000 clients ranging from small businesses to the Fortune 1000 including: Microsoft, Penske, Lockheed Martin, AT&T, ADP, PayChex, Verizon, AutoNation, UPS, Alaska Communication, Cellular Sales, Takeda, Home Depot, Brother, Pitney Bowes, and Comcast.
Tell us about what it means to you to “put customers first”?
Every touch point, every time someone in our company engages a customer, it creates an experience that our customer feels and remembers. When customers have positive emotional experiences, it anchors them to our brand, our service, and to our people. When they have a negative experience, they tend to vote with their feet and their wallets, and head straight to our competitors. We have five core philosophies we live by:
We need our customers more than they need us.
Customers are people.
We are always on stage.
We will be nice to everyone, no matter what.
We always give more than we have to.
Putting customers first is the key to delivering a legendary customer experience. We want our customers to love us so that they become our evangelists. This means putting our customers above everything else we do.
What mistake do businesses make when it comes to taking care of customers?
Making it hard to do business with them. If you make it hard for people to do business with you, they will go somewhere else. Companies should focus their attention on how they can make doing business Easy and Pleasurable for customers. Far too many businesses get wrapped up in managing their internal processes. So much so that they forget that without customers, none of that really matters.
What is your firm doing to demonstrate your beliefs in this principle?
We work tirelessly to improve the customer experience. Our entire team meets each day to discuss customer issues and develop action plans to make their experience with us better. We hold ourselves accountable to follow through on those items within 24 hours.
We are relentless in our efforts to simplify and make it easy for our customers to do business with us. For example, we have developed an innovative Facebook app, mobile solutions, and a variety of smartphone/tablet apps that make it easier for our customers to interface with Sales Gravy from anywhere and on any device.
Contact information:
http://www.salesgravy.com
