Mouse Clicks Or Street Smarts, What Wins Sales


by Steve Martinez - Date: 2007-04-11 - Word Count: 964 Share This!

If you ask salespeople what wins sales today, they will tell you they are the key to success and all they need is quality time with customers. The belief is that building a strong customer relationship can only be accomplished one-on-one. Salespeople live in a world where personality, drive and commitment to customer relations are the creed to success. Salespeople believe they are the magic ingredient to increased sales. Are they?

If you ask the typical buyer what is important in their decision making process, they will say timely and quality information is the key. The buyer is challenged with the speeding clock of time and doing more than one task. Buyers are seeking the fastest way to make the right decisions. Buyers thrive on information and information is often plentiful with the stroke of a few keys and mouse clicks. Buyers look for trusted resources that allow them to do their job easier and faster.

As we evaluate this scenario, we can understand the dilemma of a traditional salesperson and buyer relationship. On one hand, the traditional salesperson wants more time with the buyer to build a strong relationship. Unfortunately, the contemporary buyer wants to spend less time with salespeople, unless they are trusted resources with the quality and timely information they need.

Creating the Right Balance For Success In Selling

The traditional role of the salesperson must adapt to the challenges of the contemporary buyer who is challenged with time and information. Today's workforce and specifically buyers are placing more weight on Internet information and ordering on-line. Business must adjust to this trend.

The challenge is clear; business must adopt a balanced sales program that builds the trust and relationship with a company or salesperson with this new breed of buyer. This balance can be accomplished with technology, by automating and personalizing business communications.

The Internet has changed the way business communicates today. Take the telephone for example; only a few decades ago it was relatively easy to reach a buyer by telephone. Voice mail created a formidable barrier making it difficult to reach buyers. The art of a sales conversation is now replaced with conversational key strokes. Buyers now read and respond to emails faster than telephone calls. Although this may not be happening in all industries, it is certainly growing in technology industries. If businesses and salespeople don't adapt, they will lose sales.

High Tech Versus High Touch

We cannot over look the power of a personal meeting with a client to develop a strong relationship with a customer. In fact, the higher the contact in a company, the more important the personal contact becomes. This is where the future of selling is for seasoned salespeople. If a salesperson wants to maintain and develop business, they must take an active role in becoming strategic partners with high profile clients. Building a relationship is more than a golf game and occasional lunch meeting. The salesperson must understand the challenges of the clients business and suggest solutions that will resolve them. The salesperson must develop trust that comes from delivering quality information and services as a strategic partner instead of a salesperson.

Companies and salespeople must learn to balance their sales force resources, so they match the business contact's communication preferences. Some contacts will prefer the personal contact of a salesperson while others will want to communicate by key strokes. Yes, this is a challenge. However, communication tools are available to balance business communications.

Five Steps To Balance Your Sales Communications Make It Personal NOT Business: Every business communication, including business cards and email, must deliver a personal message to build trust and build a brand image. Technology is available to add personalization in all your communications. Business can add the company logo to its email correspondence and perhaps a salesperson's picture. The personal image or company logo builds the brand and a business relationship.

Personalize Communications: The power of a personal note is stronger than anytime before in history. The high touch power of a personal signature on a note card means someone took the time to write it. Personalized letters or note cards always reach the top of a busy stack of mail. We can double our impact when we hand write these notes and use postage stamps instead of meter stamps.

Automate Business Communications: Business can't expect salespeople to adapt to the high tech world of communications quickly. Fortunately, there are contact management tools that will automate the selling process and personalize communications. These systems will increase and balance the communications using personalized email and letters. When companies automate these communications, they reach an excellent balance of high tech with high touch in communications.

Hire A Hybrid Relationship Builder: When a business has the opportunity to replace or hire a new salesperson, the role must be changed. The next generation of salespeople must adapt, blend and match the buyer's contact preference. If the buyer prefers Internet communications, this should be the way you communicate. If the buyer wants personal contact, this should be accommodated with frequent personal contacts.

Use Technology To Communicate: It used to be that a salesperson had to visit the buyer's offices to communicate face to face. Video streaming and net meetings have changed this dynamic. Business must embrace the technology tools that speed the process of communications. The salesperson no longer has to travel to visit a long distance buyer as before. It is more cost effective to communicate more often using technology.

The Internet changed the way we communicate, buy and sell products and services. In some cases, the salesperson will drive customers to the company website for information and placing orders. Depending on how your customers buy from you will dictate how you should adapt to match your buyer's communications. The key to winning sales is building trust with clients through balanced communications that matches buyer's purchasing preferences.


Related Tags: balance, sales, sales automation, buyers, salespeople, adapting, personalization, comunications

Steve Martinez is the author of Sales Impactivator a sales e-publication for success oriented individuals. Selling Magic teaches businesses how to automate and customize CRM solutions with the best practices of sales management for greater profits. http://www.sellingmagic.com

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