What are you doing to build a customer base?
Our economy is still slow to expand after the recent downturn. Sales people may find that their sales growth is still stagnant. Now is a great time to take a look at your own strategies and methods to determine if you are differentiating yourself from the competition and in the process, increasing your customer base.
One of the biggest challenges that sales people fight is the urge to go in to sell a specific product without any regard for what the customer really needs. This is a huge “no, no.” When you go in with the idea “I need to get my customer to see how fantastic my product is” and remain focused only on this, you are setting yourself up for a huge let-down.
This is really “Sales 101″ but so many times it is ignored. As a customer, I have specific issues that I want to solve. When I go to a store, most generally I am looking to solve that need. Time is of the essence and if I get diverted from my goal, this can take me from my goal. It is frustrating when you discuss a need and the sales person persists in trying to show me something else or discuss something that has nothing to do with my need.
I begin to trust the sales person who asks questions and really digs into my issue. I feel important when this person repeats back to me what he has heard. It shows me how concerned he is about me and my issues. Of course it also helps us both to understand the issue and possibly the steps needed to help solve the issue. You don’t want a salesperson taking you to the area where they are selling hats because you were talking about a cap (and you meant a cap to place over a device).
Customers will begin to show more loyalty when they have a sales person who responds to things in a timely manner. I would much rather work with someone who will keep me advised as to the status on things than I would with someone in which my requests seem to have “gone in a black hole” because I never get any feedback as to what is happening with my request. When I have to make repeated phone calls or emails to get a status, then I am working too hard to get the service I feel I deserve. I would rather get a “We don’t have an answer yet, but we have not forgotten you” than to hear nothing at all.
We also begin to appreciate a sales person who can come up with creative ways to help solve our problem. That may mean the sales person is doing things outside the norm (the normal practice at his company) or it may mean the sales person directs us to his competition because the competition can solve my need. I begin to trust these kinds of sales people because I feel that rather than only looking to make a sale, they are really looking to partner with me and help me with my issue.
As you go into 2011, why not take some time to reflect on some ways in which you can re-direct your focus and in the process increase your customer base?
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