“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.”
Steve Jobs
Are you taking your largest clients for granted? Do you remember the feeling of gratitude you had the first time they decided to do business with you?
Do you really understand what your largest clients want? Do you understand what they really desire? What do they crave? Are you delivering what they really want? Do you even know?
Some of you may find these hard questions to answer because... how often are you spending heartfelt and quality time with your top clients?
How many of you can honestly answer these questions?
Gut check time, isn't it?
I would like for you to think about your largest client, got it? Think about how much they mean to you and your company.
What would it mean to you and your company if you lost your largest client?
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard these statements,
“We service the heck out of our customers. They’ll never leave us.”
"I own this account."
"They love me, they're not going anywhere."
All of a sudden a cold dose of reality sets in, an unknown competitor walks away with one of your largest accounts and no one ever saw it coming.
I'm not here to throw ill-will on you or your company. I'm asking you to think. I know you work hard for your clients. I know you take them seriously. I know you provide great service and yet some still leave, why?
Let's get real for a moment... Your competitors are calling on your largest clients. They're ripe for the picking if you simply fail to take care of them, listen to them, love them, learn from them and even grow with them.
All of a sudden, a long list of 'little things' develops, things begin to fester over time and before you know it, you’ve been replaced with a shiny new sales professional.
If you fail to continually enhance the client experience, don't be surprised if they look elsewhere for new experiences
3 THINGS SALES PROFESSIONALS DO...
Even more than bringing in new clients, it's massively critical to keep your largest clients happy with you and your company. However, keeping them happy depends on knowing what they want, what they crave and what they care about.
A sales professional is constantly looking for potential roadblocks and landmines within their largest accounts. They consistently crave feedback from their clients. They leverage feedback to identify key areas for improvement.
"Forget the Wheaties, oatmeal, or the All American Grand Slam, Selling From the Heart Champions eat feedback for breakfast."
CRAVE FEEDBACK
The consummate sales professional, runs their own business. They do their best to appease their clients, satisfy their needs and keep them loyal to their brand.
If you fail to continually find out what your clients actually think about you and your support, you'll never be able to give them the best experience they deserve. It's their opinions about the experience they have with you that is helpful information to use to adjust your support to fit their needs more accurately.
How do you know if what you're doing is working? How do you know if your largest clients are happy with their experiences or with your company? What do they like and dislike? How are you keeping up with what's going on inside their company?
Sales Professionals dig in and ask...
- What can I do differently?
- What can I do to improve or enhance my service to you?
- What can I do to help you do better business?
I'm asking you to rock the boat on this one because a comfortable mindset with these clients is a terrible thing to waste. Think of the all the competitors circling your largest clients just waiting for the right moment to reel them into their establishments of paradise.
I'm encouraging all of you... set aside your big fat egos, "my client's love me attitude", suck it up, dig in and start asking the tough questions.
SIMPLY CARE
Sales is serving and serving is sales. To serve is to care. It's caring deeply about your clients, the people who buy what you have to sell. Listen up... I encourage you to capture the hearts and minds of your clients.
It's about "giving a rip" and truly caring about helping to solve their business challenges, goals and concerns. Showing you care, it's not about being "mushy and gushy", it's about being human, being real and being your authentic self; every step of the way.
"People don’t care what you know until they know that you care."
Theodore Roosevelt
Your largest clients are asking so much more of you than they ever have before. They're holding you to a higher degree of accountability. If you fail to nourish and continually bring value, I flat guarantee somebody else will eagerly step right in.
I want you to think about this for a moment... if you fail and I mean fail to enhance the experience, grow the relationship, dig in and hunker down with your top clients... then why on earth should they continue to do business with you?
Deeply invest and authentically care about the experiences you provide to your largest clients. Watch what happens to your relationships.
CONNECT WITH MEANING
How many of you are truly connecting with your largest clients? You must make them feel like you really care and this means stop looking at them through your dollar signed glasses.
When was the last time you shared with one of your clients how you really felt?
We as human beings want to be heard, we want to know that we matter and we just want to be loved. The same can be said for your largest clients.
Heartfelt conversations lead to a human connection, be present and be in the moment. Your largest clients should be made to feel like they're the only thing that matters. Speak from your heart. So many can tell when you’re being sincere or not. When you start communicating with authenticity you'll find that the trust and relatability factors soar.
Connect with meaning by digging in and asking heartfelt questions.
- What do you truly expect and desire from me?
- What do you value?
- What matters to you the most?
- What can I do to better serve you?
Love on your clients or someone else will!
THE INVESTMENT
Feedback, caring and connectivity is jet fuel for building meaningful client relationships with your largest clients.
If you hunger to achieve true sales excellence, it can't just be about you. It has to be bigger than you. You must be driven by a personal mission to make your largest clients business world better.
- You must intensely care.
- You must have compassion.
- You must connect with meaning.
Your success in sales is not just about closing more deals, where you sit on the sales totem pole, or the size of your last commission check; it's about how well you use feedback, how much you care and how well you connect with your largest clients. Watch what happens to your relationships and watch what happens to their loyalty.
What defines you? Why do you do what you do? Do your clients matter? If your clients matter then do something about it!
Meaningful and credible relationships do matter! Discover the power of relational selling at Selling From the Heart.
I understand, I get where you all are coming from. Every day, I walk in your shoes. I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social aspects and modern strategies into your current sales process to grow new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way, the genuine way, the authentic way! It's about understanding value before visibility.
Selling From the Heart is making a difference! I poured my heart into every page of this book and I think you're going to love it. You can find it on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. You can click on the book image below and this will take you to Amazon.
You can find more material inside Selling From The Heart.
In a world full of empty suits, I'm passionate about helping sales reps succeed by getting valuable before they get visible. I help sales teams understand the true value they bring to the market.
I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my stories. Integrating the use of social and sharing my story on LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive office technology world. With great pride I transform, challenge, coach and inspire sales teams to grow new business by helping them share their story and how they communicate it out by integrating the use of social inside the sales process. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter and on my podcast by clicking on Selling from the Heart.
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