Article – Relationship sales

For the past several decades the concept of matrix sales has been touted as the future of selling. It is true the more frequent and consistent prospects see a product advertisement or sales presentation the greater the chance of that prospect to purchase your product. But as companies increased the frequency and intensity of their sales efforts; customers have equally created new tactics for defending against these promotions.  Today’s customers, with access to so many tools at their disposal for gathering product and service information, has become very sophisticated buyers. Selling today is more than increasing the repetition sales impressions or expanding the variety of modes for making a product impact. Customers have the convenience of selecting the medium and time frame they want to make a buying decision.

Relationship sales method, is still the strongest most consistent criteria for making a purchasing decision. After prospective customers have researched a product or service though whatever wide range of mediums they have, most still rely on a personal reference. Most people do not make a buying decision with consulting a friend, family member, or business associate.

Thus proving the most effect sales person a company can have, for their product or service, is a satisfied customer who then tells other prospective customers of their positive experience(s). Such a satisfied customer has to be considered, by the prospective customer, as having established trustworthiness. This Effective Sales Person is proven to be an objective individual who does not have direct relationship for personal gain regarding the buying decision.

Another effective relationship selling experience is when a sales representative has distinguished themselves to the level of becoming a sustained resource for a customer’s organization. A sustained resource is a sales person who has built a long time trust worthy reputation with a customer’s organization to the extent that they ultimately become an active participant in their customers buying decisions. In most cases such buying decision inclusions are related to products and services that sustain resource represents, but the deeper the sustained resources becomes valued, due to their knowledge and expertise, into the customer organization the greater the extent to which they are involved in their customer’s business decisions. The status of sustain resource takes years of consistent behavior to establish such trust. These are sales people who become very selective as to the companies they will work for since they understand the powerful influence of their reputation.

Relationship sales is not a short term experiment for immediate sales, it is the long term commitment to the future continuous success. The longer an organization has experienced consistent growth the more important the role of Relationship sales continues to play. Relationship sales methods have existed a long time and they play a very large role in organization with long histories of continuous growth. When the goal of an organization is building for long term continuous growth then it is important to make a commitment into relationship sales.

                                                           LISTENING

In the first six months of work at the first job out of college as a pharmaceutical sales person, I was responsible to meeting with physicians to present my products. The primary activity of this job was driving to physician offices in my sales territory meeting with the physicians and explaining the benefits of my company’s products, the side effects, and the best situations to use my company’s products. The physicians I was calling on had far greater education, more experience regarding the disease states my products treated as well as use of pharmaceuticals, so, it was a bit intimidating to make such sales calls. But that was my job.

On my first visit to meet with Dr. Foster, I enter the office, introduced myself to the receptionist, explained the purpose of my visit, she then told me to sit and wait. When there was a break in Dr. Foster’s schedule seeing patients the receptionist called my name, escorted me to the Dr. Foster’s office and told he would be in a short time. After taking a seat on the visitors side of Dr. Foster Desk I opened my detail bag pulled out my sales literature, arranged them next to me so I would be prepared when Dr. Foster arrived. After sitting quietly for several minutes Dr. Foster entered his office sat behind his desk in a swivel chair looking away from me, tilting his head back, he looked distant and a bit irritated. He seemed to mumble to himself while shaking his head. I was very uncomfortable, not know whether to speak. He did not look like someone who wanted to speak with a pharmaceutical sales person. What seemed like hours was probably just minutes.

I finally summons up the courage to speak. “Dr. Foster, you appear to have more important things on your mind than talking with me.” Why don’t I leave you alone to think by yourself?” As I packed up my literature, he slowly turned in his chair and began to talk. He told me about a house he is building, the problems he is having with the contractors and the additional expenses due to the delays. He went on to explain argument with his wife earlier that morning. He just rambled on for about 20 minutes telling me about a variety of issues in his life. I never said a word. I was too scared to. I was hearing more information than I wanted to hear. He expressed many personal opinions and feelings. As he began to wind down from his monologue, he then sat quietly, looking away from me for a few seconds, got up from his chair and left his office never acknowledging I was even there.

After he departed I felt emotionally drained, took a deep breathe, exhaled. In my mind I thought that was weird. Regaining my purpose for sitting in Dr. Foster’s office I packed up my samples and as I got out of my chair to leave, Dr. Foster popped his head in the office and asked “what did you want to talk about?” I responded with a one word answer, the name of the antihypertensive I was there to detail. He turned and disappeared down the hall. I left his office, thanked the receptionist as I passed through the waiting room. Went out to my car in the parking lot, placed my detail bag in the trunk, climbed in the driver’s seat, drove about a block away stopped and finally able to relax, I chuckled about what I had just experienced.

I worked on a six week call cycle. So six weeks after my initial meeting with Dr. Foster, when I returned to the Community where he practiced, it was procedure, before making physician calls, to visit local pharmacy’s to inquire about product sales. After introducing myself to the pharmacist he responded, Dr. Foster is writing your antihypertensive with both hands. The pharmacist went on to say that over the past several weeks Dr. Foster really has increased his use of your company’s antihypertensive product. We then talked about other products, other physicians, and the pharmacy materials for this call cycle.

The next stop was to visit Dr. Foster office. I followed my usually pattern, introduce myself to the receptionist, sit in the waiting room, have the receptionist escort me to Dr. Foster’s office, open my detail bag and prepare for his entry. Dr. Foster walked into his office made eye contact with me, I introduced myself, his face lit up. He sat behind his desk in that same swivel chair and before I could say anything else he started on his monologue of personal life events. Similar to what I had experienced in the previous visit to this office. He just rambled on about a variety of topics in his life. Similar to what had happened on the first visit, after about 20 minutes he stopped talking, took a deep breath, exhaled, got up and walked out of the office. This time, just before leaving the office he looked down at me seated by the exit and said “what product did you want to talk about?” I said the name of a vasodilator, he smiled and was gone.

Six weeks later on my next visit to Dr. Foster’s community and the pharmacy visit proved similar to the previous. Now the pharmacist said Dr. Foster was writing a lot of scripts for both my antihypertensive and my vasodilator. That pattern continued the entire time I called on Dr. Foster.

Not until the customer is ready to listen that any selling can take place. It is not how much is said, it is what is heard, even if it is just one word.

Too many people want to believe listening is a passive activity, it is not, it is a very powerful skill.

Pessimism

The definition of Pessimist is an optimist with experience.

Most people look at pessimism as a negative trait. In contrast, I find pessimism to be a very productive trait. People who find problems with new ideas are valuable asset to minimizing future failures and complaints when that new idea is introduced as a product or service.

Optimists get so excited about new ideas, seeing all of the benefits resulting from the introduction of such an opportunity, that they often rush to introduction without realizing potential problems. It is important to have optimists to keep momentum and energy when moving a new idea forward, but such enthusiasm can also produce expensive failures, when ideas are not critically thought out.

When building teams to convert an idea into a new product it is a very good idea to include pessimist who will list with skepticism potential problems. Many of these problems may not have much credence which can easily be resolved. Others might be minor short comings that require minor alterations. But the most important issues pessimists expose are true unforeseen problems requiring deeper digging to expose the severity. These are the issues requiring time and thought to overcome.

My favorite customers are pessimists. These are the people who can’t wait to tell me all of the reasons my companies products or services will not work for their organization. Many times their doubts are misunderstandings that if they are given time to talk about in detail the customer will actually correct their own misunderstanding of the products capability. Which is why is very important to listen to the customer and give them plenty of time to express all of their thoughts uninterrupted.

More important is when pessimistic customers raise a concern that is valid, my product or service falls short of solving their concern. This is called an opportunity to improve what my company has to offer. If such a complaint is real, it is not unique to this one customer, but if improvements are made, could result in increased sales with many current and potential customers.

When creating work team, development teams, problem solving teams I like to have pessimists. For the same reasons listed above, the pessimists will find all of the reasons the central topic for which the team was created will fail. Once again, if pessimists are given the time to talk out their skepticism and doubts they will provide solutions. I cannot emphasize strong enough this works best when the pessimists are given time and respect to express in detail why their skepticism is correct. But if the optimists on the team take up the art of debate to prove the pessimist opinions to be wrong antagonism will occur reducing the chances of a productive result.

Optimists are important to such a team’s success but they need to be respectful of the pessimist’s opinion and possess the skill of listening and questioning to produce productive answers.

This article was inspired my niece Emma Hornfisher, for her pointing out my pessimism.