Stop Making Sales, Start Having Relationships.

Want to know the difference between making sales and creating business relationships?  

I’ve been married for forty years.  Forty years.   That’s not making a sale, that’s having a relationship.

Sales are relatively easy, compared to having a relationship, business or otherwise.  You and your company’s sales language needs to evolve to focus more on customer relationships and less on short term ‘order getting.’  So how do you, as a seller or line manager pivot to relationship building instead of order getting?

It starts with the first prospect contact and the realization that every prospect is not right for you and your product.  Trying to talk a prospect into doing business with you for the wrong reasons rarely creates a sale, and it never creates a customer relationship.

You should decide if a prospect is a good fit for you at the same time they are trying to decide if they need or want your product or service.  How do you do this?

1.      Ask great questions.  For media salespeople, this includes finding if your offerings match their target customers effectively and efficiently.  Mismatched solutions lead to orders not relationships.

2.     Find the pain or problem before you sell.  In fact, stop selling altogether.  That’s right, stop thinking your job is to convince the prospect to buy.  Focus on what the prospect’s needs are.  You are a doctor, understand their problems before you prescribe.  Done well, you never have to sell - they buy.

3.     Get specific with your questions.  The Sandler System (I was trained in it in the early 90’s) talks about their “Pain Funnel.”  This is a series of follow up questions to focus the client on their business pain, and how it is negatively affecting them.  These questions include (not the entire list):

a.     Tell me more about that?

b.     How do you feel about it?

c.     Have your tried to solve this before?

d.     How much is this costing you per year?

e.     Have you given up on solving this problem?

4.     Listen more. If you want a relationship, you need to shut up and listen more.  Too often salespeople hear the first indication of interest in their product and start pitching.

5.     Be willing to walk away if it’s not a good fit.  Too often we get stuck trying to close a “bad fit” with discounts.  Selling someone for the wrong reason might create an order, but it doesn’t create customers.  

If you are a manager, instead of asking your sellers what they sold today or this week, ask them what client or prospect problems they uncovered.  It’s only through helping your customers that you can truly create customer relationships.