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We are all guilty of boring our prospects and customers. We forget that energy and enthusiasm are what got our customers’ attention in the first place. If we’re not careful, we begin to take our best customers for granted and let our excitement, passion and sales skills start to wane. Before we know it we’re about as exciting as a fire hydrant.

“What’s looney about this is we tend to do this with our best and most tenured customers.”

The Sales Skills Glitch
We roll in and take an established customer’s order. We say “hi” to a few faces and leave. We’ve done this routine with them so many times we’re on autopilot. Each time we go through this half-hearted performance we further erode the unique relationship we originally had with them. They start to view us as generic sales professionals.

Sales Tip: This is not a good thing. When customers don’t feel they have a special relationship with us, or if they think we are boring or if they believe we aren’t bringing anything new to the table we become 100% replaceable. The personal capital we initially brought to the table has vanished.

We are shocked sometimes when our best customers dump us “out of nowhere.” This is frequently the “out of nowhere.”

The Crazy Part About This
What’s looney about this is we tend to do this with our best and most tenured customers. We’re jumping around like bunny rabbits for that new small prospect, but can be indifferent about our very best long-term customers.

Sales Tips: The Fix
It’s simple. Bring back the fire and zeal on every customer call, especially for those highly valued, long-term, big volume customers. Our passion for the customer should be the same on the 100th call as it was on the first.

Customers buy from us because they like the buying experience we provide. We are the cornerstone of that buying experience, not our employer or what we sell. If we let our chemistry with the customer erode over time, so will our perceived value.

Further reading: The Importance of Creativity in Sales

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Tags: customers, habits, personality

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