Jan 16 2008
Customer Focus Creates Competitive Advantage
The one term that sets top performers apart is customer focus and truly outstanding sales results depend on:
- The ability to think from the customer’s point of view
- Understanding the customer’s agenda, buying cycle and best interests
Beyond a superficial reading of immediate customer needs, salespeople must gain a deeper understanding of both the buyer’s long-term goals and the overall business climate because at the heart of customer focus is the art of listening constructively - the best salespeople are masters at capturing information
Customer focus means taking the customer seriously - to-day the salesperson who clings to the product orientation of a decade ago is losing ground. As client companies branch into new markets and unfamiliar territories, they are demanding unique, flexible solutions from their vendors - customised to support specific goals
Another myth which can be exploded is that whilst customers value flexibility, being too flexible can undermine the sales relationship. On the whole salespeople imagine that customers value a vendor’s responsiveness above all. However recent research shows that their primary concern is reliability.
In order to maintain customer focus the best salespeople become facilitators, creating a partnership that extends the selling relationship within the customer’s company. The motivation to achieve this should be strong - it costs five times as much to attract and sell to a new customer as it does to an existing one!
The right to do business has to be earned and never assumed:
Rather than doggedly asking for the business, the very best sales people work to keep the relationship moving towards a sale. They realise the need to identify how to turn their company’s products into real solutions, which must meet specific needs.
Unfortunately, our surveys confirm that the average salesperson drags the customer over old ground as much as 52% of the time - they are unable to provide continuous stimulation and never know when to treat an existing customer like a new one.
Conversely, exceptional salespeople only make such ‘return’ calls for 10% of the time. Above all, earning the right to proceed requires gaining the customer’s trust and top salespeople work diligently to establish a climate in which the customer is willing to share information and feels comfortable doing so. The key here is integrity.
Today’s News: Last week’s winner over at Top 10 Sales Articles was an excellent piece by Paul Cherry and published on the Sideroad - if you haven’t visited their site, I urge you to do so without further delay, it is one of my favourites, which is why it recieved a nomination in The JF Article Community Awards recently. You can read Paul’s article, “Sales Techniques For The New Year: Asking Your Customers Tough Questions” here
Tomorrow: On the JF Guest Author Spot - Tamster, aka Tammy Stanley, good friend and original author, so expect something zany but wholly relevant.
