While doing some research on relationship selling, I ran across these two key strategies several times. Since most b2b sales people want to have good relationships with their customers and prospects, I felt it would be good to pass on these simple strategies.
Now I know several of you believe two strategies is not enough for b2b sales success. Okay, true when talking about all the different types of b2b selling. However, what I’m talking about is – only relationship selling.
When focusing upon successful b2b relationship selling, you really only need to focus upon two key strategies. So here are the two key strategies for relationship selling.
- Providing Great Customer Service
- Establishing Good Feelings
Think of these two key strategies as your personal “Areas of Excellence” you must master for relationship based sales success. These two key abilities will make it possible for you to dominate your territory when relationship selling is the way to win the business.
Let me expand upon these two strategies.
First, Providing Great Customer Service is especially important if your customer is a product driven company itself. Meaning if a product driven company is buying your products which go into their final product, then the dominant players in a product driven company are looking for their own great customer service in order to build outstanding customer loyalty.
By building outstanding customer loyalty, they can dominate their markets and win more new customers due to their reputation and word of mouth testimonials of great customer service.
So you must ask yourself – what can you do to improve my personal customer service to this customer? Think specifically about each customer and develop a plan of action to create a great customer experience. And, handle each issue as a unique moment of truth for you to take action to solve the customer’s issue to their satisfaction.
Second, Establishing Good Feeling with your customer or prospect. Okay, you non – relationship, all task sales people reading this are probably laughing or getting sick of this statement. I truly understand your feelings, yet, I remind you – this is all about creating great b2b selling relationships. It is not about consultative, ROI or commodity selling strategies, it is all about relationship selling strategies. So read on…
In other to create good feelings with a customer you must create two things consistently – rapport and trust.
First, rapport is the starting point of building trust. It is the ability to create feelings of common ground for a relationship to develop. Without rapport, the customer has no clear reason to listen to you, answer your questions, provide you with valuable information or even to discuss what problems they are currently experiencing.
In other words, they must feel good about talking with you. Therefore, you must learn the methods of b2b sales people who have mastered the art of rapport building. Understanding behavioral style is a beginning point. Then learning what your style is and how to recognize the style of others. Then learning to flex you style to the buyer is critical for rapport building.
There are other methods – what I consider advanced rapport building techniques you can learn from NLP experts. Rapport is all about making the other person feel you understand them better than anyone else.
Trust is earned after the rapport building and is usually performance based. However, trust can be transferred in some cases by using things such as social proof, testimonials, being referred by someone they already trust, and in some cases – a success story with someone or some company they also respect.
I have experienced this transfer of trust on multiple occasions, so I know it works. Think about how you can get testimonials from key industry players, build success stories that allow the prospect to place themselves into the situation – it gives you a better chance of connecting the dots for the sale since they see themselves involved in the solution through the story line.
There you have the two key strategies for Relationship Selling. Study the strategies and think about how you can use these keys to win more b2b sales opportunities.
If you are not sure how to learn about your sales style and how to recognize and flex to others – then contact Voss at InnerActive Consulting Group, Inc. 901-757-4434. We can do this over the internet. But you must call first to get the ball rolling if you want to gain more rapport with your customers. Call today – 901-757-4434.
Voss Graham
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