BUILDING VALUABLE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

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BUILDING VALUABLE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
MARK 362 with Duane Weaver

• Creating, Maintaining and Providing Value

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OUTLINE

• Creating Relationships
• 20 lessons for sales success (overview)
• Maintaining the Relationship
• Providing Value

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Creating Relationships

• The SALES SUCCESS Handbook 20 Lessons to Pen
  and Close Sales Now, Linda Richardson, McGraw
  Hill, 2003
• 1 Create Dialogue
• Build INTERACTIVITY assess give/get
  ratio(talk/listen ratio)
• Ask more PROBING questions (look for unique
  problems look for the edge/leverage points)
• LEARN about the CUSTOMER (avoid educating the
  customer)

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Creating Relationships

• 2 Always be preparing
• Prepare all calls
• Strategic Preparation
• Customer Preparation
• Product/Technical Preparation
• Tailor all material
• Requires solid customer research to show you know
  your customer logos, current trends/issues,
  environmental issues, personalized items.
• Visualize your call
• Plan the flow and allow MORE time for customer
  input. Type out a question flow chart or create
  bullet items to discuss (avoid written out
  questions other than your VITO opener).
• Allow for flexibility to follow a customers
  sudden urgent need

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Creating Relationships

• 3 Sharpen Critical Skills
• Presence, relating, questioning, listening,
  positioning, checking. Work on skills you need to
  improve.
• Commit to self-critique assess your success
• Feedback ask your customers how you are doing

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Creating Relationships

• 4 Customer Focused Opening
• Build rapport
• Opener greets, establishes rapport and has
  agenda. (See selling to VITO)

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Creating Relationships

• 5 Relate to customers
• Acknowledge
• Verbally indicate you heard them
• Empathize
• Genuine concern for observed emotions
• Rapport
• How will you build rapport??

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Creating Relationships

• 6 Position questioning expectation management
• Bridge to asking questions and/or the right to
  take notes
• Enable the customer to understand the value to
  them of your questions (just tell me the price
  and features avoid, ask needs first-with
  permission)

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Creating Relationships

• 7 Questioning Strategy
• High-impact needs dialogues
• Understand objs, current situation, satisfaction
  levels, and future needs (especially personal)
• Prep questions
• Forward thinking Understand all elements of
  implementation

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Creating Relationships

• 8 Think questions
• Customer Needs FIRST
• Avoid answering (do not tell until you know all
  the needstake time to synthesize answersshows
  concern and forethought about buyer needs)

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Creating Relationships

• 9 Deeper NEED dialogues
• Slow down (avoid answering)
• Use acknowledgement vs. paraphrasing to encourage
  customer discussion
• CURIOUSITY drive (like you really do care)

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Creating Relationships

• 10 Skillfully ask questions
• Open-ended
• Pace and Pause(one question at a time do not
  answer your own questions let the customer
  think)
• Drill-down questions get deeper

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Creating Relationships

• 11 Effective Listening
• Listen to ALL content (not just words) with
  INTENSITY and keep eye contact
• Listen for words/emotions and clarify ambiguity
• Listen with your eyes (body language)
• E.G. ACTIVE LISTENING

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Creating Relationships

• 12 Position Message
• Know and practice your key message
• Update your message continuously (keep it
  current)
• Position effectively (listen to key customer
  benefits and integrate them into your key message)

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Creating Relationships

• 13 Analyze Competitors
• Know them (research)
• Get your customers view about them
• Tactful highlighting of their weaknesses(get the
  customer to consider the area of weakness without
  discussing the competitor or yourself)

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Creating Relationships

• 14 Use objections to move forward
• Acknowledge or empathize with customer concern
• Ask questions to learn more about concern
• Position your response (customize response and
  check for satisfaction)

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Creating Relationships

• 15 Check for FEEDBACK
• Ask for feedback before moving on
• Use checking questions throughout the call
• Reality check your objective (trial close, etc.)

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Creating Relationships

• 16 Dont negotiate TOO EARLY
• Understand the NEED beneath the DEMAND
• Trade dont GIVE (Discount in return for what?
  More service support in exchange for what less?)
• Use the power of silence after stating price (the
  first to speak usually first to concede). (Be
  confident about the value you have built.)

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Creating Relationships

• 17 Treat CLOSING as a PROCESS
• Objective for each call
• Feedback throughout call
• End call with ACTION STEP (sale or concrete next
  step ask for ACTION)

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Creating Relationships

• 18 Leverage all resources
• Map customer decision-making process, question,
  observe, analyze. (Access the decision makers and
  know who influences the decision maker.)
• Enlist support of your team members (share the
  credit when you win).
• Develop a coach within customers organization
  (champions your sale for you and guides you to
  success)

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Creating Relationships

• 19 Follow up flawlessly
• Have a system (active daily to do) ORGANIZE
• Sense of urgency (be relentless and communicate
  deadlines with customers)
• Keep follow up in your court (dont expect
  customers to do your job)

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Creating Relationships

• 20 Validate the opportunity
• Assume nothing (double check all information
  received to make sure it is valid and real)
• Remember things change (revalidate and adjust
  your strategy and message)
• Dont stop at one (validate more than once and
  with more than one person in the customers
  organization)

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MAINTAINING THE RELATIONSHIP

• Theres no evidence to suggest that the longer
  the relationship is maintained the more likely a
  customer is to either continue buying from you or
  to refer your products and services to new
  potential customers...what are you going to do
  with your customers today that will ensure that
  they are your customers tomorrow
• Martin, S. and Colleran, G., 2003. SOLD, howto
  make it easy for people to buy from you (p. 3)

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MAINTAINING THE RELATIONSHIP

• Avoid Complacency
• Liking people that like each other are more
  likely to engage and maintain a relationship that
  those that do not. Caused by three things
• Similarities
• Praise (genuinely not cheesy)
• Cooperation
• Listening
• Truly effective listening is the ability to
  give people your full attention and then
  demonstrating that you understand what the person
  is saying to you
• Martin, S. and Colleran, G., 2003. SOLD, howto
  make it easy for people to buy from you (p. 12)
• Practice Active listening
• Use parrot phrasing vs. paraphrasing
• Be sincere in your concerns show value

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PROVIDING WHAT ISVALUABLE TO THE CUSTOMER

• Silence isnt golden, its brown.A silent
  customer leaves us well and trulyin the
  proverbial brown stuff.
• Martin, S. and Colleran, G., 2003. SOLD, howto
  make it easy for people to buy from you (p. 50)
• LISTEN to what they want
• SHOW what they want when they want
• TELL what they ask to know
• EXPERIENCE let them experience the value
  wherever possible (demonstration or use)
• DONT tell them everything! Often salespeople
  TALK themselves OUT OF A SALE (oops! That was the
  feature they hate to consider too many bad
  memories).

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THANKS!

• Make sure you download the chapter for the next
  Lecture from the class website
• Chapter 2 Establishing what is valuable to the
  customer from
• Martin, S. and Colleran, G., 2003. SOLD, howto
  make it easy for people to buy from you (pp.
  23-46)