Sales Laundry

“I want to be a partner for my client not just a vendor.” – Joe Salesguy

I say “Prove it.”

“I am in it to help my customers business be successful.” – Joe Salesguy

“Yeah, right.”

“I do not have to understand my customers business in order to sell my product.” – Joe Salesguy

“Your right, but you might have to if you actually want him to buy from you.”

You cannot be a partner with your customer if you can’t understand life from your clients’ shoes because being a partner implies you bring a desired expertise to the table that is not only valued but preferred to other resources available to your customer.

If you do not understand your clients business, you are no different than every other Account Manager or Consultant that knocks on his door. You are indistinguishable. You look the same and smell the same as every other guy out there pitching similar gear.

Failing to understand your potential clients business makes you lazy, stupid, or ignorant. I can fix ignorant, the rest of you are on your own.

With the wealth of information at your WWW fingertips you should have a basic understanding of your clients business before making the call. With a little bit of reading you can even get up to speed pretty quickly on your clients industry and any news about his company in the last year.

If you want to be perceived as being smart, ask smart questions. Take some time to write down some questions ahead of time that will not only demonstrate you are not an idiot but will actually begin to give you a better understanding of the type of environment you client faces.

If you ask “So, what do you do here” you should be show the door with a size 10 footprint on your backside.

Want to know why the best reps in your office can actually get their clients on the phone when they call them? It’s because the client places some value in what that representative has to say.

Or, of course, there is always the possibility that the client could have just accidentally answered the wrong line.

Be helpful, be entertaining, add value if you want your client to consider you valuable.

Right now, think about what you typically say to a prospect in a first meeting. Gut check time. Would you really want to sit there listening to that for an hour?

If not, change what you say. Don’t be boring. Bring value or just don’t go.

The client gets absolutely no value out of the initial questions you ask on an account call.  He only tolerates the questions because he assumes there will be some value coming from your yapping at some point to make it all worth it.

Don’t disappoint.

If you have a story where you have legitimately brought the value, I want to hear it. If you have a story where you got schooled, but learned a good lesson, I want to hear that, too.