Tough times separate the planners from the plodders and these are tough times in the sales game! In these difficult economic times, the sales people who are creating and holding onto loyal customers are the ones who first put the extra effort into knowing and internalizing their customer's goals and dreams. You cannot build loyalty in customers unless you know and understand what your customers really value and today...loyalty equals success.
We know that just satisfying a customer's needs doesn't cut it anymore! We know that getting to the next level...customer loyalty is the key but do we know what makes it happen?
Let's turn loyalty into an acronym and use it to find the process for accomplishing loyalty in your customer base:
LEARN ABOUT THE MARKET: Do a market analysis using SWOT (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats) or whatever method you prefer but dig out the details for your industry. Know which geographic territories are strong or weak, which competitors are under-funded or vulnerable, where your company's strengths and weaknesses lie. Then study trends. Know the economic and social trends that affect your market, know the demographic and regulatory trends and how they affect your customers. Know about new product trends and developments. Does weather and climate impact your industry, how about fuel prices? The devil is in these details and you need to know all the details to make intelligent plans. Brainstorm with the folks in your office, with your teammates, with your boss or with the other sales people in your company. Spend a couple of days doing this research and it will pay off big-time at the end.
OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE CUSTOMER'S business: As we said at the top of this message, unless we put the extra effort into knowing what our customer's goals and dreams are, we cannot find avenues of help. If we want loyalty, we have to give of ourselves and focus our energies on helping our customer grow and prosper. Our dreams only happen if our customer's achieve their dreams too! What is the best way to learn what her goals and dreams are? Ask questions. Think it through, don't ask questions that you can learn on your own (from the customer's website, from industry sources or from your network of reps)...you will just look stupid. Ask questions about the impact of current business conditions, ask questions about their competitive pressures and ask questions about their specific challenges. Sometimes your company won't have a solution but a future development or new product may. The more you know, the stronger your relationship can be and the more important you become to the customer.
YOUR JOB IS TO CREATE VALUE! What is of value to each of your customers is also different for each of them. If sharing the latest technology in your industry is important, be the techie! If helping with merchandising of her retail store is important be the expert. If helping create an ad campaign is important, pull your resources together and be the ad-person. If you have expertise within your company that can help your customer, know where it is and make it available to your customer.
ALIGN YOUR VALUE OFFERINGS TO THE CUSTOMER'S GOALS and dreams: This is where the rubber meets the road! You take what you learned by asking intelligent questions and then spend time matching your company's offerings to your customer's needs. This is a marriage and you are the matchmaker. You know the customer's goals and dreams on one hand and you know every one of your company's product and service offerings on the other (if you don't then now is the time to start!). Your job is to be the person who puts it all together and creates a great marriage.
LET'S DEMO: Show that you have the correct answer through demonstration and presentation of your product or service. A successful "demonstration of solution" is different for each of us and this is the part that most of us do well. Our Marketing Department and Product Managers have given us all of the features and benefits we are supposed to present for each of the products or services we sell. Hopefully, we have also learned to first ask the right questions so that we are presenting the value that applies to this specific customer and not losing the customer in a bunch of inane facts that she doesn't care about. Here is an additional hint for demo success: The most powerful demonstration of value is the testimonial of a current customer whose problems you have solved. The recipient of your presentation has to know the customer whose testimonial you are using or you have to give background and info that does but trust me, showing a previous success is the most powerful way to show your product or service can get the job done!
TIMING THE CLOSE is everything: Know when to close and ask for the order. So many sales are lost because the salesperson doesn't know when to stop talking and write the order. Here are some clues: Any question that the customer asks about availability, delivery methods, model choices, etc. is a clear signal, say yes or answer the question while you are pulling out your order pad. A positive statement about the testimonial that you presented is a "buy signal", pull out your order pad! If the buyer asks you to repeat your demo, pull out your order pad and then do it! You get the idea. Any and all buy-signals are your signal to stop talking and pull out the order pad!
YOUR FEEDBACK and follow-up are your future! You probably don't like doing call reports but...they are important in creating loyalty. Doing a good job of maintaining records and doing faithful follow-up is critical. In this day of electronic customer management systems, the job is easy and these tools are wonderfully helpful. Now with the click of a button you can access all of the information you recorded on previous visits. Now your calendar probably reminds you of the important dates in your customer's life. Nothing builds loyalty faster than building friendship and nothing helps more than a program that reminds you of dates that are important to your customer. Remembering birthdays and anniversaries, important business history dates and reminders about hobbies that your customer enjoys are all important factors in building loyalty. With our busy lives and hectic schedules, with all of us trying to build relationships with more new customers than ever before, with all of the daily pressures we face, investing in the tools that help make us more effective is an investment in our future.
Remember: In the end, loyalty revolves around trust and relationship! How you build that loyalty is through a process and a set of steps. There are no short-cuts because customer loyalty=success in selling.
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