Weekly Sales Tips
“If you want learning you must work for it.”
~ J.G Holland
Customers today want, results not effort, solutions not idle chit chat and value not cheap promises.
Many salespeople and organization’s business relationships are in jeopardy because they fail to give their clients and customers what they really require. These people give them what they have in inventory, can produce without too much effort or expense, can deliver, need to get rid of, are comfortable with etc. The problem is – what you want me to need and what I want may be two different things.
The supplier determines the price and the customer determines the value. Value is always a perceived issue. No two customers or prospects will measure or define value in the same way. If you sales approach is to sell what your organization has determined is your value premise you may be right once in a while but you also may be wrong from time to time. The marketplace is far too competitive to take the chance of attempting to define your value from your customer’s perspective.
The question is: how do you measure your value for your customers? There are many ways to do this none of which are foolproof. You can measure your value by:
- Repeat business from clients
- Quality referrals from clients or customers
- A lack of resistance to price increases
- You have all of your customer’s business
- Their willingness to entertain new product, distribution or manufacturing initiatives.
- Their willingness to call you when your competitor is knocking on their door
- Satisfactory after sales evaluations
- Customer surveys
These are just a few of the ways to measure the satisfaction level of your existing client relationships, however none of them in and of themselves is always a true measure of your total perceived value to them.
They could just be settling and are unwilling to investigate other options. They could not want to hurt your feelings with the truth. Or, they could actually be actively looking for a new supplier and you just don’t know it yet.
Here are a few ways I have discovered how to determine what your real value is and how to help them measure the quality of your relationship with them.
- Develop a keep in touch program that allows you to stay reasonably close to your primary decision maker and other key personnel.
- Develop additional services that you can provide that help them in other areas of their business.
- Position yourself as a resource for them in their career or business not just a vendor.
- Create lot’s of psychological debt.
- Spend time getting to know their business or personal goals, needs and desires.
There are many others, but even one of these will go a long way in helping you measure your customer’s perceived value of you and your products or services therefore improving loyalty and repeat business.