Spread The Word by STW Magazine

Controversial, peculiar, daring and in your face are just some of the words used to describe Normal Joel Sealy.

How would you describe Norman Joel Sealy? I’m a man who knows who he is, who he serves, who recognises his god-given talents, and who is committed to developing them and using them for the glory of God and the benefit of mankind. Such words as controvThese are all things that I’m currently active in so yes my friend.ersial and peculiar are used to describe you, do you agree? To a degree, yes. I’ve been known to say and do things deemed controversial in order to achieve an objective that’s beneficial to others. As far as peculiar, well we all have our idiosyncrasies. I guess mine are slightly more pronounced Lol!

MZ Is Norman Joel Sealy a musician, singer, life coach, actor or a health and fitness guru? These are all things that I’m currently active in so yes my friend. MZ What would you say makes you stand out from the rest if anything? My story, my journey, my experiences, and the meanings I’ve attached to them. We all process information differently. I tend to go for empowerment. Might as well use the dynamics of life

to launch you forward rather than drag you back.

What would you say your main focus was? At the heart of everything I do lays a purpose and desire to bear witness to the love and reality of Jesus. My mantra is “real people with real problems need a real God with real solutions.”

Is it true that you lost 5 stones in only 2 months? Absolutely. I must say that my quality of life is so much better carrying less weight. What I’ve achieved has definitely given me a new lease of life, an attitude of gratitude, a disciplined and positive approach to life, and some really nice fitting clothes.

MZ Do you think that losing so

much weight in such a short time was healthy? It definitely didn’t hurt me. I took it back to fat loss basics, which is “less calories in and more calories out.” In other words I burnt more than I ate. That principle is now my lifestyle, thus making it easy to maintain the results. What inspired you to get healthy? My story. I was so distressed about my life that I couldn’t move ahead without change. Thank God He stepped in and showed me the way!

MZ Explain the title of your album “The Long Walk Home”? The album is biopic. It’s a condensed musical version of my story and my journey, which covers the hills and valleys of my life, and how God proved that He is a real God with real solutions, and real love. Home represents being in the will of God and having a devoted heart. MZ How would you describe the album? Genre wise I call it “Urban Rock” because I mixed urban essentials with acoustic rock and pop elements. Musically, it’s a mixture of head nodding and easy listening. Lyrically, it’s poignant and inspiring.

MZ Are the songs original or cov-

ers? It’s all original material. I’ve written songs for artists before but this album was challenging because it was too close to home. I didn’t have to place myself in anyone else’s shoes.

MZ What type of music do you

enjoy listening to? I listen to a wide range of music. I love folk, classical, rare-groove, hip-hop, rock, reggae, etc. It’s all very relevant. It’s people expressing individual and shared thoughts and experiences, demonstrating that there’s many ways of looking at the same thing. I love that.

MZ What is next from you, what

are your future plans? For the immediate future I’ll be recording videos and putting on shows. I’m currently working on a dramatisation of the album, which is set to be very real, revealing, informative, and thoroughly entertaining.

MZ How has your pass challenges shaped you for the future? My challenges have definitely shown me that I’m made of the God stuff. They have equipped me with some useful life tools and a better mindset. I now know certain situations that could have killed me, actually served as a catalyst to grow and consolidate the Word of God dwelling in me, and the measure of faith I initially had. MZ If you had the ability to send

any message to the youth what would it be? Choose your role models very carefully! When you idolise a person, you also idolise their growth process, which usually includes many events of failure, bad choices, and a generous measure of suffering. There’s always a story behind the glory. Look a little deeper before you pattern your life after another person.

MZ Thank you for your time. For Bookings: Telephone: 07983 954469 Email: njsworld@yahoo.co.uk

by Ewan Denny will tell 20 people. And it takes 12 positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident. The average business spends 6 times more to attract new businesses than it does to keep existing ones, yet customer loyalty is in most cases worth ten times the price of a single purchase. Now tell me, what is a customer worth to your business? Have you ever worked this out? Here are a couple examples:

Grocery Store

PART 1

Many companies that I know seem to hate dealing with customer complaints. They view it as a necessary evil and something that they have to do but would rather not. They give a false smile to the person complaining but would rather they just go away. A typical business hears from about 4% of its dis-satisfied customers. The other 96% just quietly go away and 91% of those will never return. A survey on why customers quit, found the following: 3% move away. 5% develop other friendships. 9% leave for competitive reasons. 14% are dissatisfied with the product. 68% quit because of an indifference in attitude by the owner, manager or some other employee. On average a typical dis-satisfied customer will tell 8-10 people about his problem with you. One in five

If you run a grocery store and a local customer spends £10 a week in your shop, you will make £520 from him a year or £5,200 over the course of ten years. If one customer is worth this much to your business and its long term profitability, what will you do to keep him? Thinking about this in purely financial terms as businessmen and women, it makes sense to replace this customer’s box of rotten strawberries or give him his money back on something he is returning, so that you can keep him as your customer. If you lose £30 on something now with a customer, it is better than losing the £5,200 you could have got if you didn’t lose him in the first place. And then multiply that ten times for the number of people that he will tell as he bad mouth’s you and causes those potential customers to never set foot in your shop. £5,200 X ten people is £52,000. How does that feel now? You’ve potentially lost this volume of business because you had an argument with a stroppy customer over £10 or £20 pounds. Does this make sense?

Federal Express

Federal Express is another company that focuses on the value of a customer. If a midsize company sends 30 packages a week (at £20 each) that’s £600 a week or £31,200 for the

How to handle complaints and not lose customers

year. If a customer gets angry over a £20 shipment and switches his business to a competitor, Federal Express loses thousands and thousands of pounds. That’s why every Federal Express supervisor is authorised to grant a £100 refund on the spot, no question asked, for any delayed shipment. £100 is a small price to pay to keep an £31,200 per year customer. If you handle a complaint immediately and solve the problem for the customer, you will keep them but if you handle their complaint badly, he will leave never to return. You ought to therefore love your customers who complain and you should not see them as troublesome, or irritating people. Love them. Care for them. Let them know that you value their custom. You should do all that you can to keep a customer. If you are going to lose a customer and therefore £520 on a year on a spend of £10 per week, why not spend £10 or £20 to please him and therefore to keep him instead. Why not offer him a 50% discount, or send her a bunch of flowers with an apologetic note. Why not give him a free gift. If you run a music store, why not ask him to choose two CD’s with your compliments. If you run a restaurant, why not invite him to dine with his wife for free and a free bottle of wine to go with the 3 course meal. If you are a printer, why not design and print some personalised stationery and offer it as a gift to the customer. Doing these things is far cheaper than losing the customer altogether. It makes business sense to spend £20 to delight your customer by doing some of the examples that I have given you here, than it is to lose their business forever.

You ought to develop policies to measure customer complaints. Measuring customer complaints is crucial because individual complaints are crucial areas to resolve, and also as a whole, complaints serve as a barometer for the quality and performance of the business. You need to have a scheme which encourages, not discourages, customers to complain, to open the channels as wide as possible. Most businesses are too defensive where complaints are concerned, preferring to minimise their importance, or to seek to justify and excuse them. Wrong. Complaints are the opportunities to turn ordinary service into unbeatable service. Moreover, time and again surveys suggest that anything up to nine out of ten people do not complain to the provider when they feel dissatisfied - they just keep their dissatisfaction to themselves and the provider never finds out there's a problem, even when the customer chooses to go elsewhere. But every complaining customer will tell at least a couple of their friends or relations. Every dissatisfied staff member in the customer organisation will tell several of their colleagues. Unreported complaints results in bad feelings and the breakdown of relationships.

Ewan Denny’s book ‘The Marketing of Jesus Christ’ can be purchased from Amazon,Barnes & Noble and other leading stores. For business advice or speaking engagements contact Ewan Denny on 07962 630 724

To advertise in Spread The Word™ - The UK’s Official Gospel Event Guide contact: Tel: 0845 094 6097 e:mail: admin@ministryinart.com To sign up to receive STW visit our website: gospelevents.net

STWTM AND MIA PUBLISHINGTM ARE PART OF THE MINISTRY IN ART MEDIA GROUP - COMMUNICATING EXCELLENCE