It's mid-afternoon at Skylink when Tim walks in my office.
The sun is shining through my windows, which reflects off the whiteboard onto his face.
Tim looks at me behind my desk and says, "They're in London."
He's referring to a client who made a last-minute decision to attend an industry conference.
His eyes flutter like butterfly wings.
I look at him with an intense, I-have-a-brilliant-idea gaze. You know the kind — strong blink-less stare, followed by a smirk.
Book the flight, I say.
He laughs.
"The conference already started," he mutters.
That's great, "go have dinner with them."
That's the purpose of this trip. No forced sales conversations. No pushy product demos.
Just dinner.
He looks at me, shocked.
Like a deer in headlights.
Pull up the flights and give the client a call.
He looks at the flights and runs into my office. The flight leaves tonight.
I smile, and say, "Book it! Call the client to make sure they have time for dinner."
He becomes excited and nervous.
He calls the client, and they're leaving the following day. For them, the conference is a bust.
They're treated like cows in a meat factory.
They're shocked we were ready to fly out this evening to visit them. They thought it was incredible.
It was going over and beyond to continue to build trust with them. They've already begun to invest heavily in our company and team.
One month later, Tim traveled 16-hours, with two layovers to visit them at their headquarters in a remote city.
This is one way to create a WOW experience.
We incorporate this value into everything we do, from how we interact with clients, to focusing intently on continuing to reduce the friction of purchasing our products and solutions.
It sounds easy, but it's complicated and expensive…but worth it.
Here's why…
A WOW experience develops trust.
There's a saying that everyone hates being sold to, but everyone loves buying.
The problem with being sold too — it's often with selfish intent. There's no value exchange.
Trust isn't built.
By creating a WOW experience, we're on a mission to make the lives of our clients better.
This first starts with our clients trusting us and knowing they come first.
It's why we have decided not to do business with everybody. We can’t. If we did we wouldn’t be able to deliver on our promises and stay true to our core values.
One of them being a WOW experience.
You can't be some desperate slimy salesperson trying to hit numbers.
No one likes being treated like this.
I get hundreds of emails and messages a week, and most of them end up in my trash bins because people reach out to me with an "I, I, I" mentality.
They don't genuinely want to help me. Nor do they care about anything I'm working on.
This doesn't build trust.
Imagine being at a bar and someone walking up to you, slapping you on the butt and saying, "sup, can you buy me a beer?"
Trust-lost-forever.
This is what being sold to usually feels like, especially in a B2B setting.
You also can't have trust alone.
You must be knowledgeable about what you do and be able to give advice that helps clients achieve their desired results.
A WOW experience can help…
Increase results, personally and professionally.
We offer various services for commercial and military aircraft.
How the hell can we make the personal lives of our clients easier by purchasing aircraft material?
Here’s how…
We reduce the friction of conventional processes within our industry.
All of it is frustrating.
There's friction at every interaction.
It’s what we say we’ll deliver all of the aircraft material you need…without the common supply chain frustrations.
I was speaking to a team member the other day and said, you know what's great about what we do and the vision, mission, and values we've taken on as a Skylink team?
It's that we're genuinely helping people. We are making their lives easier and more fulfilling. Helping them make their operation better, while saving them hours of personal time every single week.
There are many ways we do this as a team, but the biggest one is we remove 99% of the common frustrations our clients deal with on a day-to-day basis.
This saves our clients time, removes stress, and it makes them genuinely happy to work with someone they like and trust.
This is creating a WOW experience.