Tag Archives: Customer Relationships

Four Ways to Improve Your Sales Communications

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My friend and speaking coach, Patricia Fripp, has a phrase that I love.  She likes to say, “Specificity brings memorability.”  She’s right – and she’s getting more and more right every day.  What she means is that, when you are speaking (or selling), what sets you apart are the specific details that you bring to the table.  For instance, she coaches that you should quote statistics, specific facts, and other details that are “sticky” with the audience, even if they forget most of what you said.

Today, there’s another level to that – to sell successfully in 2023 (almost 2024), not only to you have to be specific, you have to be specific to the individual customer.  Your customer doesn’t care what you’ve done for your other 99 customers, they care about what you will do for them and their individual situation.  That expectation definitely raises the bar for your messaging, but it also creates big opportunities to win business.

If you’re still using generic sales pitches (most of us have at one time or another), you’re probably finding that they just don’t cut it anymore. Your customers have come to expect personalized interactions and recommendations tailored specifically to their needs; after all, when Facebook can detect a post you made and then immediately start throwing up ads for related products, we’re in a world where people expect sales and marketing to center around THEM. To effectively sell in this environment, you must improve your sales communications by moving beyond blanket messaging to authentic, one-to-one communication that demonstrates a deep understanding of each customer.

Once upon a time, we could send out generic email messaging and boilerplate product brochures, and still get a decent response rate. Nowadays, customers see those tactics as insincere (which, let’s be honest, they are), and often it turns customers off rather than capturing their interest. What grabs your buyer’s attention? Truly customized interactions that indicate you comprehend their unique situation.

The “bad” news is that, now, you have to put in the work to research prospects and customers as individuals before reaching out. Take the time to thoroughly understand your target’s business, challenges, goals and buying criteria. The good news (no scare quotes this time) is that it’s incredibly easy to do so. LinkedIn (in particular) gives you a window into what your prospect is thinking and doing – if you are on LinkedIn and if you are using it.  Yesterday, I talked to a new client who explained to me that most of his salespeople don’t have LinkedIn profiles and aren’t using it.  In 2023, that’s unacceptable – you’re leaving a lot of your opportunity to sell on the table.

When you are armed with a solid understanding of a prospect’s or customer’s world, you can then tailor every piece of communication to resonate. Customize emails, social messages and collateral to showcase your grasp of their priorities and needs – and how you can create Advantages over their current situation.  That can launch them into their own Buyer’s Journey – one that hopefully includes you. Send relevant content that ties directly to current initiatives within their company. The more precise and one-to-one your outreach, the better it will be received.

Don’t be afraid to send non-sales content.  For instance, let’s say that you see an article that ties back to something one of your customers is experiencing, or a post that you might have seen on LinkedIn.  Shoot them a message with a link to the article, indicating why you sent it.

Nailing this level of personalization at scale takes work.  After all, most of us have more than one customer or prospect at a time! But it pays off handsomely by boosting response rates and forging stronger customer connections. Research by The Relevancy Ring found personalized emails generate six times higher transaction rates and individualized web experiences provide a 20 percent lift in sales. Customers that feel understood and valued through tailored communication build lasting loyalty with brands over those taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

While personalized messaging certainly demands more upfront effort from you, that’s precisely what sets you apart. In competitive industries, buyers have multiple options with comparable solutions. You’ve probably already figured THAT part out.  Taking time to understand your customers shows you genuinely care about their success beyond making a quick sale. Strong one-to-one connections drive more productive conversations that uncover true needs and align your solutions. When your buyers feel understood as more than transactions, you build trust that wins business.

Here are four quick steps to individualizing your communication:

  1. Research. Note that when I say “research,” I’m not suggesting that you spend all day on one customer.  You can learn more in five minutes now than you used to be able to in hours – so spend that five minutes doing quality research.  Company web pages are good.  Company social media is better (because it’s more current and more reflective of where they are at the moment).  Your contact’s professional social media is best.  Looking them up on LinkedIn?  Good professional research.  Looking them up on Facebook?  Stalkery.
  2. Find a “hinge.” A “hinge” is a point upon which to base sales communication.  For instance, if your target says that they are about to open a new location and you sell something that helps with that, that’s a hinge.  If your target expresses frustration that you can solve, that’s a hinge.  But remember – hinges are “specific.”
  3. Craft a message including the hinge. Now it’s time to reach out.  You can use email, social media messaging, or you can even craft a short voice mail (because so few people answer the phone anymore).  “Hi, John, this is Troy with ABC Company.  I see that you’re opening a new location at 46th and Main, and we already help several of your neighbors solve this problem that you’ve referenced in a LinkedIn post.  Maybe we could help you, too – could we talk?”  Remember – specificity brings memorability.  Keep it short and punchy, but include enough detail so that you’re talking to your target, not just anyone who might be in the area.
  4. Be patient. We might not love it, but the reality is that prospecting is much more of a slow play now.  The level of information and control that your buyers have means that they can enter their own Buyer’s Journey on their timetable – not yours.  Understand this, keep dripping specific messages, and you’ll get on their radar screen.

The bottom line is that generic communication doesn’t work anymore. Want to win more business today? Then you have to become a student of your prospects and clients. Put in the work to comprehend needs, goals and pain points at an individual level. Then demonstrate that understanding through authentic conversations and recommendations matching each customer’s unique priorities. This approach to selling is going to move your customers beyond the “occasional buyer” status and create the “loyal customer relationship” that we are all looking for. Set yourself apart and improve your sales communications by speaking to customers like the individuals they are.

The Most Valuable Commodity You Can Market

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From time to time, I enjoy engaging practiced salespeople and sales managers in conversation about selling on a deeper level. One such conversation that happened this week centered around the question, “what is the most valuable quality salespeople can bring to the table?” Answers ranged from “product knowledge” to “likeability” to “good communication,” and on into “expert questioning” before one of the salespeople hit the correct answer – the answer that trumps all of the above.

That answer is trustworthiness. The reason it is the trump card is simple; if the customer doesn’t believe what you say, it doesn’t matter how well you know your subject matter, and if the customer doesn’t trust you, they won’t answer questions honestly. Trust, then, is a prerequisite for all activities that center on communication – selling in particular. In that spirit, this week I’ll share a few methods for building trust with customers, but first I have to share one of the most outrageous stories of a salesperson ruining his customer’s trust in him. It’s too good a story not to share.

It seems that this salesperson was employed by a cleaning company that was providing janitorial services to a group of hospitals. The hospital management liked him a lot, and liked the service provided. They believed in him and the quality and integrity of his company. Then came a charity golf tournament.

As a friend of mine (who happened to be in the same fivesome as this salesperson) explained, “It was a typical five-man scramble; one guy would hit into the sand, one into the woods, one way into the rough, one guy would dunk a ball and one would get stuck in a tree somewhere (sounds like my own lack of a golf game wouldn’t have been out of place – but I digress). The salesman would hit first on each hole, then drive the cart down the fairway to ‘spot’ for the team. When the rest of the group had hit and went down the fairway, a ball would have magically appeared in the middle of the fairway with the salesman explaining that one of the shots ‘kicked’ into the fairway.” Yep – he was cheating in a charity golf tournament. But wait – it gets better.

It seems that the key decision maker for the hospital account was also in this same fivesome, and what was happening wasn’t escaping him. In fact, immediately after the 18th hole, the manager left in disgust, skipping the post-tournament party. Slick Salesman wasn’t done, however. He did the same thing a month later – at a tournament sponsored by the hospital. After getting a feel for this guy’s character, the hospital management began watching everything that the janitorial company did, and lo and behold, they found bad billing, cleaning that was supposed to be done that wasn’t, and other problems. Long story short, the salesman is no longer employed by the company, and the company no longer has the account. The moral of the story? Some salespeople believe that trust is solely generated by work habits and activities; the truth is that anything you do that shows a lack of integrity can ruin your trust. In that spirit, here are some ways that you can build trust with your customers:

Do what you say, and say what you will do: This is so painfully obvious that I hate to even say it, but I encounter salespeople on a daily basis who think nothing of not fulfilling promises in a timely fashion. When you make a promise to a customer, they remember it. When you fail to fulfill that promise, they remember it FOREVER. It’s not that tough; only promise what you can actually do, then DO IT.

Do the right thing, even when you think no one is looking: Someone once said that this was the very definition of integrity. Sometimes, you’ll be tempted to behave in ways that you would never think of doing if you knew a customer was watching; guess what? They might be. Several years ago, I was in Minneapolis making calls with a salesperson as a favor to a branch manager of the company I worked for. On our second call, the customer got a look at my salesman and immediately threw us out. It turns out that, the night before, the salesman had been out at a bar, got a few drinks in him, and started a conflict with another patron over a particular seat at the bar. Huge stuff, right? Well, it turned out to be. The other patron turned out to be the person he wanted to sell to the next morning. Behave like a jackass in public at your own peril; you never know who is watching.

Keep your big yap shut when it needs to be: These days, customer confidentiality is huge. Salespeople are regularly trusted with company secrets of their customers. Unfortunately, many salespeople are “Instant babbler, just add beer.” I’ve seen salespeople who think nothing of telling me incredibly confidential details about their customers – stuff that their customers would probably have a heart attack if they knew the salesperson was repeating indiscriminately. If you want to continue to have your customers confide in you, you must respect and value that confidence by keeping it.

Respect your customer’s boundaries: Sometimes, there are pieces of information that your customer doesn’t want to give, or places they are unwilling to take you. If that’s the case, consider it a measure of the increasing bond of trust when your customer eventually gives you those pieces of information or takes you those places. Continue pressing immediately for them and your customer will back off.

Of course, because trust is such a huge subject, there are many more ways to build it. However, this has hopefully given you some things to look for in conducting yourself and building trust in your customer base.

Five Signals That You Have a Maximized Customer Relationship

The Navigator News

I like CRM. If you’re a regular reader of this space, you know this; however, what you might not know is that I have another version of CRM. Instead of Customer Relationship Management, I prefer to think of Customer Relationship Maximization.

You see, too few salespeople really understand what a customer relationship really is. They think, “Hey, they buy from me – we have a relationship.” Not necessarily. They might just be an Occasional Buyer (they shop you every time) or a Habitual Buyer (they buy from you out of habit without really understanding why). A Maximized Relationship is what we should be shooting for, and below, here are the Five Signals That You Have a Maximized Customer Relationship.

  1. You can make mistakes and still keep the business. There’s really no larger indicator that you have a real customer relationship than this one. Mistakes happen. That’s because people are imperfect – yes, even your humble author. In fact, I had such a meeting today. I was meeting with a client to discuss a particular service offering that hadn’t gone as well as it could have. IN the midst of the meeting, my client gave me the highest compliment that they could: “Troy, regardless, we want you to continue to be involved here. You’ve been good for us and to us.” Mistakes happen. If one mistake costs you the business, you didn’t have a real relationship.
  2. They buy most of what they need from you. This is actually a bit of a revision from my contention of the past. I used to say that you have a maximized customer relationship if they bought everything from you that they could buy. I’ve backed off that to a certain extent. Today, I like to see at least a 75% market share as a maximized relationship, simply because customers like to diversify – few buyers these days are willing to put all their eggs in one basket, no matter how good you are. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t always be shooting for 100% market share – you should – but it does recognize that sometimes it just isn’t possible.
  3. You have multiple contacts. This is more important now than ever. Good customer relationships require multiple contacts. The reason is simple – employees are more and more mobile, and stints at jobs get shorter and shorter. If you put all your relationship eggs in one basket by having a single contact, that means that when your contact changes jobs, you’re back to square one and selling on an even keel with your non-incumbent competitors. In building your relationships, go High, Wide, and Deep. “High” means as high on the company organization chart as you can get. “Wide” means many contacts. And “Deep” means that your contacts have more than a superficial relationship with you.
  4. They give you referrals. Referrals are one of the greatest indicators of a maximized customer relationship. A referral is an expression of trust. When your customer refers you, they are saying that they trust you so much that they are willing to place their other relationships in your hands. It’s also an expression that your customer cares about you, your business, and your continued prosperity. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – your best customers want you to prosper. You earn that level of trust and confidence; it’s not given to you. But when it’s earned, it’s a wonderful thing.
  5. They evangelize for you. What I mean by “evangelize” is that they are willing to give testimonials, and serve as a reference when necessary. One of the toughest parts of selling a new customer is offering proof that your promises aren’t just empty words. Testimonials do this – they allow new customers to see you through the eyes of happy current customers, and in so doing, they are the most valuable sales tool that you have.

When you evaluate your customer relationships, think of the above five touchpoints. Chances are that most of your relationships won’t measure up. That’s okay; it gives you something to work toward. Get strategic. With each of your key customers, pick one of the above signals (where you are deficient) and work toward improving or achieving the signal on each call. When one signal is achieved, work on the next. It’s likely that you’ll find that one signal achieves another (for instance, the customer that will give you a testimonial will also likely give a referral or tolerate a mistake). Make no mistake – a Maximized customer relationship is money.