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A good friend of mine, named Chris, gave me a sales tip recently that applies to every sales professional on the planet. It’s actually an anti sales skills concept. Chris has grown his own business through a lot of hard work. His sales tips tend to be quite practical as a result.

“Those dividends are a better customer partnership and ironically, more revenue…”

For Now, Ignore All Prior Sales Planning Information from This Sales Blog
Everything has its exceptions. Sales is no different. Sometimes we have to do things in a completely counter-intuitive way. Chris suggests when we contact our customers that we occasionally have a sales agenda with only one item on it. What is the one item? Talk about anything with the customer except business. Make it personal. This goes against all the sales planning and sales skills training we’ve ever experienced. What a refreshing change of pace for our interaction with the customer.

The Anti Sales Tip After Shock
We may have to pick our customer up off the floor when using this relationship building idea for the first time. They’re not used to this. They may actually begin to feel that we think of them as something more than a dollar sign. It can enhance the relationship greatly.

The Time and Money Stranglehold
We don’t do this often enough because of two major obstacles. Time and money. Our employers want us to bring in the dough. We know that we need time to make that happen. Because we operate under limited time constraints and our primary objective is meeting a budget goal, we don’t feel free to spend non-business time with customers.

Chris is suggesting that we do this on an occasional basis, not on every customer visit of course. He knows that giving away a little of our time in the non-pursuit of revenue can pay massive dividends. Those dividends are a better customer partnership and ironically, more revenue in the long haul.

Further reading: Overly Aggressive, Pushy, Annoying Salespeople

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Tags: customers

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