Audience: sales reps
Message: Sales success means knowing your customer.
Tone: motivational, instructional
Timing: 8—9 minutes

The days of the one-night stand are over. Today’s selling relationship is a marriage; both partners must commit to it. Less-effective salespeople are still selling products,… while customers are buying relationships.

Second, the days of mass-marketing are gone. Everyone needs a custom solution. The competition is still busy making red soda-straws and doesn’t want to change. But our customers are asking why they can’t have striped and plaid ones.

Nothing fails like success,… success that has become stagnant. To stay in the market today, we’ve had to listen to our customers and make some changes. Not one-time changes. But daily, monthly changes.

So I guess what I’m saying to you is this: Get to know your customer as well as you do your marriage partner. Develop intimacy.

In marriage, that intimacy is developed by talking. By sharing self-knowledge. It’s the same with your customers. They want intimacy. They want to hear what you know about your company’s service, technology, products, future plans. What can you do for them specifically now? What plans do you have to meet their needs tomorrow and during the next decade?

We’ve come full circle. The days of chomping at the bit while sitting in new-product orientation sessions, I hope, are over. Just such knowledge is what the customer demands when you get to her door. Educate your prospects. Given a choice between a low-priced, no-frills, what-you-see-is-what-you-get product and a higher-priced product that comes complete with a knowledgeable salesperson to act as a consultant, today’s customer is choosing the knowledge base. The more your customers know about your products, the more likely they are to buy.

If you don’t know your product, you’re being irresponsible in the relationship.

But intimacy requires more than self-talk. To get intimate with your customers, you have to help them disclose self-knowledge.

Never stop asking questions. It’s amazing what a few minutes spent with your customers will tell you about what needs they have. Know what benefits motivate them. Charles Revson once said about his marketing of Revlon products: “In the factory, we make cosmetics. In the store we sell hope.” Find out what motivates your customer—the benefits they want, not just the features.

That’s valuable knowledge to us as management. To stay competitive, we’re going to have to turn your customer’s wants-and-needs list into next year’s products and services. You can help us do that. Lead your customer to disclose self-knowledge. Then pass it on to us.

Although I’ll add a side note: Here’s where the marriage analogy breaks down. My advice is not to disclose your spouse’s snoring or spending habits to friends or neighbors. But such customer knowledge is valuable to us here at (company).

Selling, like marriage, also involves changing. The newlywed husband who expects to have a gourmet meal set before him every night promptly at seven is in for a surprise. His expectations are going to need to be changed. Likewise, with your customers.

You may have to change their expectations to build volume. Under normal conditions, customers call a real estate agent, expecting to buy one house. But what if they learned that most customers buy two houses—one to live in and one to rent out as an investment? You’d have to change their expectations if you wanted to sell them two houses.

If your customers expect to order only six-months’ supply from you, you’ve got to lead them to expect to need a two-year supply. If they expect only a product—one your competitor also offers—you’ve got to lead them to expect that they will need training to use that product. And guess who is the only provider of that now-expected training?

Another facet of the marriage relationship is protection. Happily married people protect each other physically—or at least try to. They protect each other’s health by the right kind of diet and insistence on more rest and less stress. They protect each other’s reputation. They protect each other’s best interests in general. Likewise, with the sales relationship.

You have to protect your prospects. Big-ticket items represent a risk—customers have to risk their money on something you claim is worth the price. You have to reduce their perception of risk by offering guarantees. By making it easy for them to believe you. By encouraging them to talk to satisfied users. Let them taste it, feel it, see it. Tell them about our buy-back policies. Assure them you’ll be there to hold their hand through the birth.
And what would marriage be if partners couldn’t count on each other to “be there” for them? That’s your role, too, with your customer.

When there’s a problem, be there to add value. If you’re present, ready to help when problems surface, customers will remember you forever. They will fall in love.

And, as in all marriages, there are the all-night sessions. The arguments, the tears, the truth-telling. You need that—especially with prospects,… and with customers you lose and must win back.

Ask prospects why you failed—sincerely. Was the product not suited to them? Did you really not understand their needs? Is the customer afraid the value won’t be perceived by the rest of the work family, especially higher-ups? Did you just not communicate well? Was your proposal off target? Were you unresponsive when they had questions and wanted answers?

At worst, with such specific questions, you may get some good feedback. At best, the prospect might change her mind.

I challenge you to look for a marriage relationship out there tomorrow. Make a date and tell customers about who we are—and keep telling.

Encourage them to tell you about their wildest dreams.

Protect them; reduce their risk so they can make that buying decision.

Add value by “being there” for them when there’s a problem.

When you don’t get the second date, ask why? What can you do differently when you court the next prospect or customer?

I want to leave you with one last comment from an acquaintance of mine: “A sales job is easy. I just keep reminding myself these are not really people—they’re only customers.” That observation comes from supersalesman, J.K. Duff. [Start to walk away from the podium; then turn and add the last word.] Unemployed.