Seize a ship of fools and commandeer a slight shift in your sales process. The maneuver could help you attract more business and build longer-lasting relationships. Adopt a more analytical approach with your customers. Aim for proposing solutions that better connect to your customer’s real needs and thus their very present reality. To do this, examine what you’re doing: do you spend more time with customers talking about what you’re capable of, versus talking about their needs and the problem of the day? Change your course and you can also instantly differentiate from most of your competition. When opportunity knocks, stop taking orders and take a few more notes—make it your mission to become an extension of your client’s business.
Begin with your thinking, and then change your conversation internally and externally. With practice you will soon be writing your bid proposals with more insight into your customer’s pain, simply because you know more about them and the problem of the moment. Before long, it will become apparent to them that you’re there for them, adding value in unexpected ways. You create relevance in their reality. In your customer’s eyes you have become less of a risk—therefore more trustworthy. You appear more knowledgeable—so you get invited into the fold sooner with less restriction, less focus on price.
Caveat: Don’t let me over simplify
Let’s not overlook your reality either. This kind of change may not be easy and it’s certainly not a quick fix. First of all, you can not be sure how exactly you’re perceived anyway. You will have to take some steps with at least each type of customer to determine your starting point (baseline). Second, if you are perceived as an order taker supplier you have a hole to dig out of. The price sensitivity you may have attracted to your business may also severely restrict your ability to have the conversation in the first place. So the first step may be the hardest. Turning a ship around is slow but sure, here are the steps to change and the freedom you desire:
- Determine your current course—notice differences with each customer type
- Set a new heading—go for small achievable maneuvers to obtain early successes
- Make changes to the heading as you move along—big and small course corrections ensure your eventual intended arrival
The upshot: Three simple steps create the objectives
So how do you become the trusted advisor your customers call, even when there’s no order? How do you move away from the perception of order taker that customers believe add risk and complexity to the purchase process even though the interaction would take less time? Practice makes perfect, but be patient with all three steps—especially with sales people who will naturally find every reason in the charter to resist.
- Probe—What has been their experience in the past? What are their current goals and objectives? What are they not revealing about their agenda? What barriers do they perceive you or they must overcome? How do they perceive their customer’s problems and need?
- Quantify—This is almost a free step because it’s what you’ve been doing anyway. Here you size up the parameters of time, quality and price. You want to conclude the full extent of the customer’s problem and how success will be measured.
- Incentivize—If you’ve asked the right questions and met the first two objectives you probably understand what would motivate your client at this time. With this leverage, just remember that everything is negotiable and a deal can always be made when both parties see it to their own benefit.
INSIGHT:
The coatings industry will look a lot more promising when your ship is pointed in the right direction—even if the sea is rough. You know from experience, the difference between making money and the alternative is often a very fine line. There is seldom any loyalty given to a price-leader-order-taker. You end up resenting the customer and traveling in circles. It leads to nowhere.
I welcome your comments. Let me know what you think.