Wednesday, July 16, 2008

And Furthermore, or ...


... Commitment the Third


Lee Iacocca is known today as the chairman who engineered the rescue of Chrysler. Before that he was the number-two man at Ford who championed the game-changing Ford Mustang. But he got into that position as head of sales at Ford in the early sixties.

One of his innovations was the follow-up call. He didn’t invent the follow-up call, of course, just the strategy.

It was – and still is – traditional for a car salesman [yes, in those days a man] to call a buyer at home and ask what they thought about the car. Iacocca’s great innovation was this: He instructed salesmen to ask, “What do your friends think of the new car?”

The beauty of that question is that you’re not asking for complaints. You’re asking for compliments.

You’re asking for commitment.




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