Be A Friend!

Every sales interaction, whether in person or virtually from your web page, should begin and end on a personal note. The customer and the sales or marketing person should begin and end their relationship as two "human beings" building towards a goal that is mutually beneficial, not as buyer and seller. This is called "building a professional relationship". Your customer is not, and can never be just another sale. Take the extra time to build your "Professional Relationship" and ultimately into a "Professional Friendship". There is no rule set down that says you must remain only buyer and seller. The sign of a true marketing professional is the ability to serve successfully as an "Ambassador" of his company or product. Just as an Ambassador, a successful marketer is required to have sensitivity, tact and most of all "Sincerity". There is nothing easier for a customer to pick up on, than a salesperson making believe that they are sincere when they are obviously not. It requires more than dry, tasteless questions of the family's health. If you have not yet fully discovered the benefits of building "Professional Friendships", you are blindly passing by a waiting pool of prospects. Being a Professional Friend might mean making a mere call or sending an email to see if they are happy with your product or to see how their business is progressing. It may be an offer of counseling with a business problem. But do it "without" the sole intention of making another sell. People will respond to your caring and consideration, and come to think of you as a friend who cares. Therefore, they are more likely to make their next purchase from you, a professional they have come to trust.....a friend. Never Leave Your Friend Behind! It is a very important principle in sales and marketing that there be a pleasant beginning and an even more pleasant finale to a professional relationship or friendship. The old saying, "Don't Burn Your Bridges Behind You" comes to mind. Many sales professionals seem to eager to dissolve such relationships because the customer stops buying. Right away, they move on to, or focus on the next customer. Their conversation becomes dead and their manner formal. Apparently they are thinking to themselves, "No more orders from this person". There may even be a formal thank you and a polite goodbye, but if you have suddenly lost interest in people they become keenly aware of this fact and will often take it personally. They may think to themselves, "Well, if that's the way they feel because I wasn't interested this time.........". People are not pleased with formal and distant attitudes after any type of relationship has been formed. An Award For Congeniality! A sales professional must learn to make themselves likeable. They must be congenial. It's a magnetism of their personality traits they were either born with or developed through years of training, formal or not. This attractiveness or congeniality, whatever we may call it, is one of the most valuable attributes that any professional dealing with clients can possess. It is a curious fact that few technical people possess this power of attracting people. That is why "techies" seldom succeed as sales professionals. They rely solely on the facts and their technical knowledge. They treat all customers alike. In fact most have an underlying contempt for their customers ignorance of a product or subject, which some of them do not even bother to conceal. Personal Capital The fact is that a salesperson's best asset is the goodwill of their customers. If you have built up a reputation for honesty, courtesy, knowledge and reliability, you have acquired real "personal capital". No one can take this away from you. No thief can steal it. No one but "You" can destroy it. In Closing: A true measure of success is the number of friends that you have acquired, in both your business and personal life. Always strive to make new friends; it's the secret of good management and of a great marketer. It's a sure fire way to make your business succeed. MAKE FRIENDS: YOUR SALES WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES AND YOU WILL NEVER LACK CUSTOMERS. The aim of every company should be permanent patrons, not people who buy once and never again. New customers are far more costly (in the way of advertising or the work of canvassing for them) than the time it takes to be a friend.