There’s no better judge of a sales person’s performance than his or her customers. These tips and tools from my book Sales Secrets From Your Customers, emanate from hundreds of interviews conducted with customers – to find out what sales people were doing right and wrong.
Customer Interview 1
“The best sales rep I know is a woman who’s become a resource for me in a variety of areas. I use her on a consultative basis, almost. She helps me evaluate opportunities. Not only with her product – she’s a constant fountain of information in trying to find different ways to portray my point of view to the market. I never get the feeling that she’s just selling me something; she’s interested in my success.”
Customer Interview 2
“Our company feels that we are partners with our customers. The better we work as partners, the longer-term we’re going to do business and the more business we’re going to do. If a sales person approaches me in that fashion, I can be a very loyal guy. I know I can use a rep as a consultant when I’m sitting across the desk from him and I ask him a question, and I don’t get a chapter and verse about his product – I get a chapter and verse on what’s in my best interest based on his experience in the marketplace.”
Customer Interview 3
“I need a rep who understands what my concerns are and what I’m trying to get at. A really good rep can actually help you understand what you’re looking for. People who run businesses don’t always know where their market is. A good rep can actually say: ‘How about going in this direction?’ They see a lot of different businesses in my industry. They might have a better understanding than I do of what motivates my customers to buy. I need them to help me understand these things.”
Customer Interview 4
“With some reps, it’s obvious that they’re only interested in the rand amount of the sale. They’re not interested in trying to promote your business. A good rep approaches the sales from what you need to get your business going. They’ll often help you by showing you examples of what other people have done to be successful. They’re not after the quick sale, they want a long-term relationship. They help you come up with the ideas that are outside of their product or service. Unfortunately, with most reps you get the feeling they’re more self-serving than customer-serving.”
Key Points From Customer Interviews:
1. Create Customer Partnerships
There’s a saying that, if customers were just buying price and product, we could just hire brochures as sales people and send them out. One of the most valuable assets a sales person has is the ability to create partnerships with their customers. That means keeping the customers’ overall business goals in mind and helping them find new resources whenever necessary. It may mean recommending a competitor on occasion if your company or product can’t do the job. It means knowing your product so well that you know every conceivable application and adaptation possible. It means using your imagination to come up with ways to improve your customers’ bottom lines (and thereby improve your own.)
2. Create Added Value
When I’m setting up a sales training programme for a company, I usually have contact with several different people in the organisation. At one of my accounts, I had the opportunity to talk to the person who books the seminars for this company. Her job is to find space for the seminars, book hotels, arrange transportation, etc. I remember I once spent an hour on the phone with her teaching her how to negotiate with hotels to get better room rates.
This was helpful to her, because when the time came for her review she could show her supervisor documented evidence of how she saved the company thousands of rands; it was good for the company and it was good for me because she told her supervisors what I had done which then provided added value beyond the training.
3. Exceed Your Customers’ Expectations
Sales training expert Tony Parinello recommends that sales people help their customers in three areas. He suggests that sales people should offer ideas on:
- How to help the customer drive revenue
- How the customer can maintain their customer base. If you have some ideas on how to help a customer hold on to their hard-earned market share, you’re going to earn your right to stay there.
- How to add business from their existing customers.
“As a sales rep,” says Parinello, “you need to be able to out-deliver, out-perform and exceed your customers’ expectations in these three basic areas.”
Solutions Action Steps
Dive in with enthusiasm and effort.
Dive into your own products and services and what they have to offer. With equal energy, explore the customer’s business so that between the two you can come up with innovative, exciting solutions that will benefit your company and his.
Keep your mind open. “The way things have always been done” may not be the best way to solve your customers’ problems. Instead of saying: “It can’t be done,” ask yourself, “why not?”
Ask yourself: “What resources do I have available to influence the customer’s bottom line?” Start thinking outside the confines of your own product or service. Who do you know who might be able to help? How can you put the customer in touch with another supplier who might have the solution – even if it’s the competition? What would be the ideal solution to this problem, and how close can you come to making that happen?
