Sales and Marketing Training in Malaysia | Know How Your Customers Perceive You
How a customer perceives you and the relationship you have together has a significant impact on whether you win a deal and book the sale. Few customers want to deal with an automaton who fills out purchase orders, completes invoices, and arranges to ship orders. Today’s customers are looking for someone they can rely on to provide them with crucial information, keen insight, and expert advice that will help them make important purchasing decisions.
Most of us would like to believe that we offer superior service to our customers. But what really matters is what our customers think of us and how they would describe the relationship they have with us. Through our research, we have identified four different and distinct relationship levels that sales professionals can earn with their customers. At each level, the actions, behaviors, and values displayed by sales professionals vary—as do the ways in which customers perceive, value, and trust sales professionals. As shown below, the relationship with the customer identifies those four levels as order taker, friendly salesperson, effective salesperson, and trusted advisor.
It’s critical that you understand these levels, and so we define them in detail here:
Order Taker
■ Has zero understanding of customer needs
■ Does not focus on connecting with or developing relationships with customers
■ Is focused on closing the sale without consideration of customer needs
■ Does not challenge the customer’s thinking or offer options and alternatives
■ Does not offer any insights or ideas on the application of products or services
Friendly Salesperson
■ Has limited understanding of customer needs
■ Is slightly focused on connecting with or developing relation ships with customers
■ Stays focused on closing the sale with limited consideration of customer needs
■ Has slight willingness to challenge the customer’s thinking and rarely offers options and alternatives
■ Offers very few insights or ideas on the application of products or services
Effective Salesperson
■ Has a strong understanding of known customer needs (needs the customer is aware of)
■ Remains focused on connecting with and developing relation ships with customers
■ Strongly considers customer needs when making recommendations in the sales process
■ Is willing to challenge the customer’s thinking and offer options and alternatives when customers seem open to other ideas
■ Offer some insights or ideas on the application of products or services
Trusted Advisor
■ Has complete understanding of customer needs (known and unknown needs)
■ Deems connecting with and developing relationships with customers of the utmost importance
■ Makes customers’ needs the number-one priority in the sales process (willing to walk away from a sale)
■ Is always willing to challenge the customer’s thinking and offer options and alternatives, no matter how strong the customer’s opinions
■ Always seeks to offer insights or ideas on the application of products or services
Sales professionals who aim to sell to today’s demanding, busy customers must strive to become trusted advisors if they want to succeed. In fact, in order to become a top performer, it’s critical to work on the skills and best practices that will position you as a trusted advisor. You can’t be one without the other: top performers are trusted advisors, and trusted advisors are top performers. It’s critical to achieve the highest level of credibility and trust with your customers so that you can accelerate the sales process and close more deals—and become a top-performing sales professional.
