People Strategies: Evaluate company, self from customer's perspective

Linda Bower is a speaker, executive coach and human performance improvement consultant in Rogersville.

This is the first of a four-part series that describes the workshop, The Counselor Salesperson.

This insight is available through the author's previous employment and current client relationship with Wilson Learning Worldwide.

Wilson Learning Worldwide is one of the largest human performance improvement companies in the world. It was founded in 1965 and has representatives in more than 30 countries.

The Counselor Salesperson unfolds a sales process that ensures consultative behavior from the beginning of a client relationship through after-sale support. This process works because it is fundamentally based on the customer's perspective.

Over time, a salesperson guides the emphasis of customer dialogue through four stages, each of which will be described in upcoming articles.

Relating establishing credibility.

Discovering understanding the customer's needs.

Advocating asking for the business.

Supporting ensuring customer satisfaction.

Stage one: relating

The goal of relating is to help the customer perceive you as a competent, trustworthy, problem-solving resource.

A sales relationship is initiated in this stage, and rapport with the customer is established. How well you do this depends on your ability to:

put the customer at ease;

make a positive impression;

establish mutual interest;

demonstrate competence; and

communicate positive intent.

The skills used in relating are relevant throughout the sales process; your ability to relate will influence your success in discovering, advocating and supporting. The following activities will help you in the relating stage:

Meet your customer's expectations through your dress, manners, business protocol and speech.

Share relevant information about yourself; for example, your experience with the product, organization or industry.

Demonstrate empathy for any uneasiness the customer may be feeling.

Demonstrate your knowledge of the customer's situation; for example, organizational structure, products, customers and market conditions.

Establish commonality by minimizing differences, and focus on finding areas of mutual interest, values, or experience; for example, ask open questions or make statements that uncover and highlight common history, ideas or hopes.

Communicate your intent by stating your:

purpose why you are there;

process how you would like to proceed;

payoff the potential benefit to both of you for spending time together.

One tool that is recommended for building credibility is to plan for customer meetings by writing "Ben Duffy" questions.

This is a true story: Ben Duffy was in a highly competitive situation against all the great advertising companies. His was a small operation, desperately wanting to grow. Winning this one customer's business would put his agency on the map and secure his future for the rest of his life.

To prepare, Duffy put himself in his prospective customer's shoes.At the beginning of the meeting, he mentioned that he had written some questions that might be on the customer's mind. The customer was surprised and said that he had written 10 questions to ask all of the potential suppliers. They compared lists; 8 out of 10 were the same questions.

Duffy got the business, his agency became well-known and he became independently wealthy (and this tool was named after him).

To write your own "Ben Duffy" questions, start by looking at you and your company from your customer's perspective. Open the questions with phrases like these:

"You might be wondering"

"Many people ask me"

"If I were in your shoes"

Then finish the question by considering the customer's perspective, for example:

"Why am I taking your time?"

"Is this going to be a high-pressure sales call?"

"How will we help you over the long run?"

Put together the question like this, "You might be wondering, who else have we worked with in your industry?"

Try it: Before your next sales meeting, write 10 Ben Duffy questions and share them with your customer. Write to us at SBJ and let us know what happened.

Common pitfalls

It is possible to overdo relating more than in any other stage of the process. Here are some common pitfalls to watch out for:

inappropriate use or overuse of jargon;

prematurely addressing the customer on a first-name basis;

oversensitivity to the customer's gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.;

overselling your qualifications;

pretending to know more than you actually do;

relying too heavily on educated guesses because you have little or no information regarding the customer's situation;

behaving in a patronizing manner;

making assumptions about customers based on whom they know or what they do;

reluctance to provide information about the weaknesses or negative aspects of your product or service; and

appearing manipulative or as having a hidden agenda.

Relating is more about attitude than technique.

See your credibility and your company's capability from the customer's perspective, and then help them see it, too.