“So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself. It’s worth it.”
Kristin Smaby
Take care of your customers or someone else will! How many times have you heard that one? Yet, how many times do we fail at taking care of our customers in the way they want to be taken care of?
How well is your sales team taking care of your customers?
Successful leaders know in order to grow sales you must take care of your customers. You must make a lasting impact on them. I have to ask... what's the impression your team is making on your customers? Would you even know?
Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. Yet far too often, we forget just how important they are until it becomes too late.
You and your team may think you're taking care of your customers, but in reality, are your actions measuring up to your intentions? Right now, at this very moment - would you even have a clue as to how anyone on your team is taking care of your customers?
I'm concerned as to how many leaders are clueless as to how their team is taking care of their customers.
“Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution.”
Rick Tate
Let that quote sink in for a moment, now ask yourself - Are my salespeople enhancing or neglecting the customer experience?
DO YOU HAVE SALES BABYSITTERS?
Are your sales reps growing your competitor's next great customer?
How well can you answer the following...
- Would you truly know if your sales reps are delivering value?
- Would you know if your team is providing your customers what they value more effectively than your competitors?
- Would you know if your team is delivering value that your customers can't find elsewhere?
- Would you know if your team fully appreciates your clients?
With the utmost of honesty, sit down and visualize your sales team as you read out loud:
- Sales reps who flip their base year over year, possibly earlier than needed, are nothing more than overpaid babysitters.
- Sales reps who fail to grow their business and the relationships within them are overpaid babysitters.
- Sales reps who fail to consistently prospect, fail to develop new business relationships, fail to enhance sales opportunities and lead by example are nothing more than overpaid babysitters.
Now, what are you personally doing to help coach your team to enhance the customer experience? If you find this hard to answer then I submit to you right now, you're fostering a babysitting culture.
CUSTOMERS OR CLIENTS
Stop treating your customers as customers.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a customer is someone who buys goods or services from a store or business. The word client can also mean customer but it has a separate definition as someone who receives professional services.
In a business context, the two terms are often applied differently based on the types of relationships built. Customers are generally people who come to you mainly to buy products or services you supply. Clients buy your advice and solutions personalized to their particular needs.
Do you and your team personally view your customers as customers or are they viewed as clients? How many inside your team view them as clients but treat them as customers?
Would you even know?
Are Your Salespeople Enhancing Or Neglecting The Customer Experience?
Would you know when a customer becomes a client, or the other way around? When a client becomes a customer this becomes a problem.
Are you building customers or are you building clients?
Think about this one for a moment... How are your sales reps being viewed? Are they viewed as sales reps of products and services or do they enlighten, add value, inform, advise, counsel, nurture and become an advocate on behalf of your clients?
Is it your personal preference to be sold or served? When you’re in the marketplace as a consumer do you seek out professionals whom you can trust or sleaze-balls selling you and then moving on?
Your personal commitment should be to coach your team to build sustainable relationships with your clients who value their professional advice rather than finding customers who make a one-time purchase.
If you and your team fail to keep your clients as such, they could turn into customers
A SERVANT EXPERIENCE
Hug, strengthen, protect and serve your clients. How many of your sales reps are putting a big huge hug around your client base? What are they doing to ensure your clients continue doing business with your company?
Are your clients being well-served and taken care of? The more your sales reps can lead with a servant mindset the better off you'll be in the long run. The aim is for them to be seen as a trusted adviser.
To serve, this sets an entirely different standard and experience. Your clients are human beings and not pieces of equipment. In a personal relationship, the human and heartfelt aspect is of the utmost importance. I'm going to ask you and your team to do the same with your client relationships.
Serving is warm. Servicing is cold. Servicing is a defensive move while to serve is an offensive move.
A servant experience means:
- Understanding your clients' needs at a deep level.
- Identifying and anticipating needs they may not yet have realized.
- Making your clients' job easier.
- Knowing something about the clients’ life and family.
ENHANCE THE EXPERIENCE
Creating an outstanding experience is one of the biggest opportunities your team will have to capture your clients' interest, get them to act and have them continue to do business with you.
Your team must stop operating with the same mindset, delivering the same HO-HUM experiences as you expect different outcomes.
What could you be doing to give your clients the experience they deserve? What can your team be doing to give your clients the experience they deserve? There’s absolutely no excuse for ignoring this fact. I encourage you to start curating client memories. If you're not providing outstanding experiences, then really, what are you doing?
I understand, I get where you all are coming from. Every day, I walk in your shoes. I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social aspects and modern strategies into your current sales process to grow new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way, the genuine way, the authentic way! It's about understanding value before visibility.
Selling From the Heart is making a difference! I poured my heart into every page of this book and I think you're going to love it. You can find it on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. You can click on the book image below and this will take you to Amazon.
You can find more material inside Selling From The Heart.
In a world full of empty suits, I'm passionate about helping sales reps succeed by getting valuable before they get visible. I help sales teams understand the true value they bring to the market.
I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my stories. Integrating the use of social and sharing my story on LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive office technology world. With great pride I transform, challenge, coach and inspire sales teams to grow new business by helping them share their story and how they communicate it out by integrating the use of social inside the sales process. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter and on my podcast by clicking on Selling from the Heart.
