KNOW YOUR CLIENTS

In Week 10, I encouraged you to know your product inside and out, but you cannot sell products or services in a vacuum. You sell products and services to the people who use them.

This sounds obvious, but many marketing, advertising, and sales professionals often become so obsessed with highlighting the features of a product or service that they completely overlook the benefits —all the good things the features can do for their clients.

In order to personalize the sales process, you need to demonstrate to your customers how your products and services can make their lives easier or more enjoyable or save them time and money. To accomplish this well, you need to know your clients and how they typically use the products and services you sell. In this chapter, I show you how to develop a better knowledge of your clients.

WHO’S REALLY YOUR CLIENT?

A top hair salon owner asked me to help him identify and capitalize on new revenue-generating opportunities. He was thinking I would give him some advice on products and services to offer patrons. Instead, I began by asking him who he thought were his best clients. He singled out his regulars—the people who scheduled monthly or weekly appointments, showed up on time, rarely complained, and delivered referral business.

I disagreed. I told him to look at it a different way. His clients were actually the people on the floor who booked business—his hair stylists, manicurists, and massage therapists. Instead of focusing on pleasing the people who walked through the doors for a manicure, massage, or wash and cut, he needed to focus on pleasing the hair stylists, manicurists, and massage therapists. They needed to be happy and growing in knowledge in order to properly service their clients’ needs.

Before you begin studying your clients, take some time to identify the people who are really your clients—you might be surprised at who they really are.

USE WHAT YOU SELL

You can get to know your products and services by using them yourself. Becoming a consumer of your own products and services is a great way to get to know your customers, as well.

If you sell a particular make and model of car, drive it yourself to discover firsthand every feature of the car and how each feature benefits you. If you sell camping gear, go camping and use the products you sell to determine how they can make your campouts safer and more enjoyable. Regardless of what you sell—racing bicycles, snowboards, computers, clothing, furniture, you name it—you will do a better job of selling it if you use it yourself.

PARTICIPATE IN CONSUMER COMMUNITIES

Consumers often congregate on the Internet or in local communities to share their enthusiasm and knowledge of certain products and services. You can find communities for people who own VW Beetles, athletes who play any number of sports, patients who share information on medications used to treat specific illnesses, web sites where people gather to learn more about buying and selling a home, and much more.

These communities are tremendous resources where salespeople can learn more about the clients they serve. Clients who become involved in these groups often ask the same questions that your clients will ask or at least think about asking. They share the same problems. They seek out the same information.

By becoming involved in these communities, you can develop an intimate knowledge of your clients and learn how to serve them more effectively. In addition, if you succeed in establishing yourself as a trusted expert in these communities, you begin to develop relationships that sell.

CONSULT WITH OTHER DEPARTMENTS

Sales reps often become isolated from the other departments in their companies, including customer service, technical support, and product development, but people in these departments are often excellent resources for getting to know your clients—what they need, what they want, the questions they most commonly ask, and the most common issues they encounter.

As a salesperson, you should be making the rounds at your company to gather as much information about your customers as possible. Schedule monthly meetings with managers from other departments, especially those departments that communicate directly with clients, so you can share information. By sharing information, you can all work together to improve all aspects of your products and services, your delivery, and the way you serve customers after the sale. Through your combined efforts, you improve customer satisfaction, which drives more sales.

LEARN YOUR CUSTOMER’S BUSINESS

If you are in business-to-business sales, your clients’ business success is your success. The more profitable your clients become, the more products and services they can afford to buy from you. Find out what your clients need to succeed, which usually includes the following:

• Products: If you do not carry the products your customer needs to be successful, either add them to your product line or team up with someone who carries the product. You may be able to trade referrals with suppliers who offer different products.

• Services: If you do not offer the services your customer needs to be successful and you know a company that does, contact the company and work out a deal to refer clients to one another or perhaps negotiate a referral fee with that company.

• Information: You can often win clients by supplying them with the information they need via your web site, blog, or newsletter.

• Training: Consider providing training (either free or for a fee), instructing your clients on how to make better use of the products and services you sell or how to become more profitable.

• Financing: Many small-business owners require financing to get up and running. By offering them financing to purchase your products and services, you can often make a sale and win a client for life.

• Personnel: Skilled and talented individuals keep businesses running and growing. If a lack of qualified personnel is getting in the way of your client’s success, you may be able to recommend qualified candidates.

GATHER FEEDBACK FROM CLIENTS

One of the best ways to discover more about your clients is to ask them to provide feedback on everything from the products and services you sell to your customer service. Consider distributing a survey or questionnaire to your best clients. To increase the number of people who respond, do the following:

• Keep the survey or questionnaire brief.

• Include a postage-paid envelope for returning feedback.

• Offer a discount or free gift to everyone who returns a completed questionnaire.

When you begin receiving completed surveys or questionnaires, have your assistant input the data into a spreadsheet or database, so you can tally and analyze the results.

You may also want to ask for feedback via your web site or blog. Include a form that customers can fill out to e-mail you questions, suggestions, or complaints.

Ralph’s Rule: One of your main goals as a salesperson should be to make your clients as successful as possible. Whether you are trying to put a family into the right vehicle or home, provide physicians with prescription medications that most effectively treat their patients, or supply businesses with the products and services they need to serve their customers, the more successful you can make them, the more successful you will become.