Costumers are people, current situation (2 - end)

Only the business with the ‘‘human touch’’ that consistently demonstrates, ‘‘you’re a real person and we genuinely care’’ will stand out as noteworthy in the eyes of the customer. Product and price is easily copied; a business’s ‘‘human touch’’ competency is not.

The ‘‘human touch’’ competency should not be confused with the popular but misconceived notion publicized by most businesses that they have customer ‘‘relationships’’ or seek customer ‘‘intimacy’’. The truth is that most customers don’t want what the word ‘‘relationship’’ or ‘‘intimacy’’ implies – a certain degree of closeness or meaningfulness regarded by most as offensive and intrusive.

Customers want and need something more akin to an ‘‘understanding’’. An understanding has certain emotionally based expectations and exchanges without the implied closeness and meaningfulness suggested by the word ‘‘relationship’’.

Research has shown that this ‘‘understanding’’ is based on three primary human needs of customers and the resulting expectations:

1 Acknowledgement

2 Respect

3 Trust

How and why customers choose to buy, both initially and follow-on customer purchases, is eloquently simple. Here is a snapshot of how customers buy as ‘‘people’’ (through their eyes):

1 Build trust in me so I feel buying your product is the best decision for me.

2 Acknowledge me and my importance to you.

3 Respect me and my needs.

Initial trust is either confirmed and strengthened or is disproved and decreases based on the customer’s experience.

Source : Costumers are People, The Human touch. John Mckean 2002

Costumers are people, current situation (1)

Customers want the best product at the best price for them and want to be treated well in the process of buying and owning that product. In a market where competitive product and price offerings exist, customers will choose the business that best treats them like a ‘‘human being’’. An emerging body of evidence verifies the intuitive notion that a customer’s decision to buy is based more on how human his or her interactions are and less on subtle product and price differentiation. The latest research reveals that up to 70% of a customer’s decision to buy is based on interactions and only 30% based on product attributes. It is the ‘‘human touch’’ that stands out in the mind and memory of the customer.

Although many businesses advertise they treat customers as ‘‘relationships’’, ironically less than 10% of their resources are invested in how human they treat their customers. Over 80% of customer initiatives are focused on how to ‘‘sell the customer better’’ through matching products to customers rather than investing more resources in ‘‘treating customers better’’. The resources applied to ‘‘selling the customer better’’ for specific customer initiatives have little impact on a customer’s future decision to buy during subsequent campaigns whereas resources applied to ‘‘treating the customer better’’ have a strong annuity effect on successive campaigns. Resources invested in ‘‘selling the customer better’’ have little or no impact on the customer’s future buying decisions whereas resources applied to ‘‘treating the customer better’’ have a significant influence on future buying decisions. Matching customers with products only addresses 30% of the factors influencing a customer’s decision to buy in the competitive market. This 30% best indicates which product the customer will buy. It fails to provide an adequate framework to influence where the customer will buy it. Sales and marketing efforts based on this attribute approach often create equal demand for the product among competitors.

This is the common downfall of most Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives.

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Source : Costumers are People, The Human touch. John Mckean 2002

Relate to Your Costumer

The critical skills of questioning, listening, positioning, and checking are the know-how skills. But the skill of relating—which includes rapport, acknowledgment, and empathy—is the feel-how skill. Building rapport is often connected to the opening of a call. But there are also other powerful ways and times to relate throughout the call. Many salespeople get into sales because they “like people.” As critically important as rapport is, it is only one part of relating to customers.
Rapport is the “like people,” chitchat part of relating. Many salespeople who are good at rapport limit their ability to connect with customers to that part of relating. They don’t reap the benefits of using acknowledgment and empathy throughout the dialogue. In a training session, a group of salespeople were confronted with an objection exercise in which an irate senior-level customer said, “Your people are always spouting formulas as if we know what to do with them!” They were asked to respond with empathy. They said, “What is it you don’t understand?” and “I’ll go over the process again” and so on. No one initially came up with an empathy statement. It took a while to arrive at “We certainly don’t mean to do that. I’m sorry we have not been clear. What specifically …?”
Acknowledgment and empathy are powerful skills. Although questions can be empathetic in tone, questions don’t replace empathy or acknowledgment. For example, if a customer mentions a problem, a good salesperson might ask, “How did you handle that?” A superb salesperson is likely to introduce the question with empathy to convey concern and, most important, encourage a more complete response—for example, “I’m sorry to hear that that happened,” followed by the question. Both acknowledgment and empathy are very important to an active dialogue. Empathy goes a step beyond acknowledgment in showing concern for the customer and, when used effectively, it can help form personal bonds.
Empathy is not easy for some salespeople to express. They may feel empathy, but are not comfortable communicating it. Verbally expressing concern and caring can help you reduce customer defenses and make you more persuasive. Especially when a customer is emotional or the topic is sensitive, it is very helpful to respond first with an expression of genuine empathy, to make the customer more receptive to your response. Empathy needs to be genuine, because phony empathy is usually transparent to today’s savvy customers.
Many salespeople are more comfortable using acknowledgment because it is more neutral. Using acknowledgment is also an effective way to connect with customers.
Here’s how to broaden your relating skills:
Acknowledge, acknowledge, acknowledge : Verbally indicate you heard what the customer has said.
Empathize: Express genuine empathy when your customer is disturbed, excited, or emotional.
Rapport: Develop your rapport skills by preparing how you will build rapport. Rapport is the first step in building a relationship.

Source : The Sales Success Handbook. Linda Richardson.2003

Sharpen your Sales Critical skill

“Salespeople are made, not born. For most salespeople, sales excellence does not just come naturally.”(Linda Richardson)

Top performers often say that their sales dialogues feel more like brainstorming with their customers than “selling.” These are the six critical skills that are fundamental to making their dialogues so fluid and productive:
• Presence—communicating energy, conviction, and interest when speaking and listening
• Relating—building rapport, using acknowledgment, and expressing empathy to connect with customers
• Questioning—creating a logical questioning strategy and effectively using probing skills to uncover needs
• Listening—understanding what the customer communicates in words, tone, and body language
• Positioning—persuasively demonstrating value and application to the customer by customizing your product knowledge to the needs of the customer
• Checking—eliciting feedback on what you have said to gauge customer understanding and agreement
These skills are the tools of selling. The sharper the skills, the more effective the salesperson. A weakness in any one of the skills puts a cap on effectiveness. For example, if the salesperson can’t establish rapport with the customer, it is unlikely the customer will open up in answering questions. If the salesperson is a poor listener, answers lose their value. And without an understanding of customer needs, it’s almost impossible to connect capabilities to customer needs.
Dialogue selling requires product knowledge and technical expertise, but equal to these is customer knowledge and skill. In dialogue selling, the salesperson becomes a resource person who, because he or she fully understands that particular customer’s specific needs, can meet the needs that relate to his or her product and also cross-sell and meet the customer’s broader spectrum of needs. To succeed in dialogue selling, you must master the six critical skills.
Here are ways you can sharpen these skills:
Assess your six critical skills: presence, relating, questioning, listening, positioning, checking. Force-rank the skills. Identify your strengths and areas for improvement. Work on one skill at a time to get it to the next level.
Commit to self-critique: At the end of each call, critique your skills as well as the content of the meeting.
Ask for feedback: Elicit feedback from your customers and colleagues.

Source : The Sales Success Handbook. Linda Richardson.2003

Creating a dialogue with your costumer

“Increase your sales dialogue to increase your sales results.” (Linda Richardson)

If you were to ask 100 salespeople you know whether their approach was customer-centered or product-centered, what would they say? Few, if any, would boast about selling “a box.”
Most salespeople believe that they know their customers’ needs. They believe they are positioning solutions, not products. They believe they are customer-focused. These beliefs are the biggest obstacles keeping them from making the changes they need to make in their Sales talk. Selling styles run the gamut. There is a sales style continuum. At one end of the continuum is generic product selling, basically a monologue, a “product dump.” At the other end is consultative selling, an interactive dialogue that focuses on the specific needs of the customer. 100% on either end is impossible. All salespeople are
somewhere in between.
Some salespeople are charismatic sellers who rely on their interpersonal skills and charm. Others are technical experts, substantive in content but weak in customer focus. There are the “killers,” always rushing to the close, often at the expense of the relationship. These characterizations of sales types are extreme, but they set the context for thinking about how salespeople approach sales.
The majority of salespeople today use a combination of approaches. They want to be liked, they want to be credible, they want to close, and they want to meet the needs of their customers. But for most salespeople, this amalgamation has resulted in a quasi consultative approach at best. While quasi-consultative salespeople identify customer needs and are productive, they fall short of what they could accomplish.
Salespeople who are at the consultative end of the continuum create efficient but robust dialogues with their customers that enable them to connect and learn more with each conversation. The dialogues are active, with balanced exchanges between the salesperson and the customer. What they do looks easy and sounds like common sense, but it is far from simple and it is not common practice.
The line between quasi-consultative selling and consultative selling is fine, but if all other factors are basically equal, the line means the difference between winning business or losing to a competitor. It can be the difference between being viewed as a technical specialist and being a trusted adviser. With relatively equal competitors, it is the sales talk of the salesperson or sales team that makes the difference
between winning and losing business.
Here are ways you can create a robust dialogue:
Assess your sales talk: How interactive are your sales dialogues? What is your give/get ratio?
Commit to do something different: Ask more probing questions.
Stop thinking in terms of educating customers: Think more about educating yourself about your customers.

Source : The Sales Success Handbook. Linda Richardson.2003

Sales Talk

Sales talk. What is it? It is more than you talking. Sales talk takes two. It is not a monologue. It is a dialogue. It is a customer-centered exchange of information that begins and ends with the customer whose needs must drive the conversation.

You have a sales approach you use consciously or unconsciously every day. How open are you to looking at your sales talk up close? If you are open, these lessons can help you assess yourself, spot your strengths and weaknesses, and change your sales talk. You will tap into your natural skills, leverage your knowledge, and sell more by creating compelling dialogues with your customers.

You are probably thinking, “But I already do all that.” And it is likely that you do. But how are you keeping up with the changes that are occurring everywhere around you—with your customers, your competitors, your markets, and your own organization? Relying solely on product knowledge or technical expertise doesn’t work in today’s environment. The Internet is a free and convenient source of knowledge, giving customers more information than ever before. Salespeople face a tough business climate in which they need to win all the good deals that are out there. In this environment, products—once the key differentiator—are the equalizer. Instead of talking about products, your role is to communicate a message in which you add value, provide perspective, and show how your features and benefits apply to and satisfy customer needs.

Most salespeople use a model for selling that has been the predominant model for decades. It primarily relies on the old, tried-but no-longer-true feature-and-benefit focus. Too many salespeople tell their product stories too soon, without necessarily meaning to do so, and invariably talk from a generic product vs. customer point of view. When they ask about needs, they don’t go far enough. When they identify a need, they jump to product, rather than create a rich dialogue to understand why, how, or when. Selling today is more demanding. As business becomes more challenging, salespeople need a higher level of skill. My experience, in more than two decades of working with tens of thousands of salespeople in some of the finest organizations in the world, shows that at best only 30% of salespeople truly practice need-based consultative selling and no more than one third of those achieve trusted-advisor level with their customers.

The bottom line is that too many salespeople are still too quick to tell a product story. While most think solution, they present product. Because they tend to talk more than they listen, they create an imbalanced

give/get ratio instead of a 50/50 dialogue. Overall, the level of preparation and questioning does not measure up. Most sales organizations have good salespeople, but they lack enough superb salespeople to drive the growth they need to succeed. As much as everything else is changing, the old formulas of selling features and benefits are still around, blocking dialogues and holding good salespeople back from becoming superb. The lessons in The Sales Success Handbook will let you tap into your natural talents by helping you take advantage of your personal strengths, build on them, and create Sales talk that sells.

Source : The Sales Success Handbook. Linda Richardson.2003

Finally, It's Started....

Finally, my first blog stated.

In this blog, i want to learn and share about sales.

so, let's learn and share together.