A number of years ago, I was asked to bid on a very large training contract. I assumed, as there were lots of good consultant/trainers running around, that I was in a very competitive situation and therefore, the only thing that mattered to the customer was the price. Thus, I decided I would lower my already low asking price by 25 percent in order to make sure I would have a fighting chance to land this job. The first order of business was to go to the city where the corporate headquarters was located and meet with the corporate staff that had the authority to hire me.
For the most part, people prefer to do business with people they like and trust. That's why personal relationships are far more effective when it comes to getting people to say yes than the mastering of any sales technique. Let me give you an example: Eighty to ninety percent of the people who go into the business of selling insurance leave the field within a year. Now let's take a look at a typical beginning insurance salesperson: Jill, a college graduate who has just completed an insurance company's three-week training program at corporate headquarters. During this training program, Jill is thoroughly coached on the latest selling techniques.
A territory sales rep for Upjohn communicated with her actions when she was denied the opportunity to communicate with words. She was making a joint sales call with her boss, the district manager. The doctor they were calling on worked at a medical clinic that was located on the twelfth floor of a high-rise office building in downtown Los Angeles. It's important to remember here that most doctors don't like to meet with pharmaceutical sales reps. The reason is there are lots of them, they are young and aggressive, they think they know everything so they insult the doctor's intelligence and often promise things on which they don't follow through.
The department store chain, Nordstrom, is a master at giving its customers special treatment. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, where until recently, there had been no Nordstrom. The closest stores were located in San Diego, some 300 miles away or one hour by air. So how did Nordstrom get people from Phoenix to shop at one of their stores in San Diego in big numbers? The answer is they spoiled the people who did and they spread the word.
In any kind of sales or marketing campaign, you want to make sure you target the right people. The problem, however, is that who the right people are not always obvious. For example, I was consulting with a company that of my clients had education centers all over North America in which they taught various types of technical courses to high school graduates.
Many people think that the name of the game in selling is to create satisfied customers. The problem with customers who are merely satisfied, is they are likely to switch to a competitor if they think they can get a better deal. If you expect to achieve big time success in selling your goal should be to create loyal customers. As the late quality guru, W. Edwards Demming put it, "A loyal customer is excited about doing business with you, is willing to wait in line, and gladly pays premium prices. Furthermore, a loyal customer requires no advertising, doesn't need to be sold over and over and continually brags about the merits of doing business with to other potential customers."
When it comes to solving problems with customers, special treatment often works far better than money. Let me give you an example: A senior vice-president of a bank for whom I was doing some consulting came to me one day crying the blues. His concern was that some of the competing banks had decided to aggressively go after some of the large depositors who did business with his branch banks located in several wealthy retirement communities.
The biggest single mistake people who are trying to become successful make is that they try to do it by themselves. That represents the hard way of trying to become successful. The smart way is to get people to help you and the more help you get, the faster you'll get there. Joe Girard got into the Guinness Book of World Records as the World's "Number-One New Car Salesman" by selling 1,425 cars in one year. What a phenomenal individual accomplishment! The question is, how did he do it?
I had a financial planner call on me several years ago. His first comment as he walked into my office was, "I'm not here to sell you anything."
I remember thinking to myself at the time, "What a refreshing approach."
Several years ago, I did some consulting work for the sales organization of a large pharmaceutical company. These people were very concerned with the fact that one of their new products wasn't selling very well. The product was a timed-release patch for managing pain that was used by chemotherapy patients. This product was an alternative to morphine and their clinical studies showed that it was a superior product because it was far less addictive and had fewer side effects. The problem was that the doctors weren't prescribing it and these people wanted me to help them figure out why.
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