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sales Martin Lee on 26 Oct 2007 02:01 am

Selling is About Relationships

The reason why many salespeople struggle is that the needs of the buyer and seller are misaligned. No matter which part of the world you are in, people buy when they are ready to buy. When they convince themselves they have a need. When they have a need that needs to be met.

And not when you need to sell and come calling.

Most people do not seek low price but just want their problems solved at a reasonable price. Poor salespeople are reducing prices, giving away stuff and allowing margins to be eroded.

Good salespeople, on the other hand, provide value and stress on the benefits. They cultivate long-term relationships so that when the prospect is ready to buy, he or she is the person the prospect will look for.

When you have that relationship, it wouldn’t even seem like selling. It’s so much easier and less time-consuming.

The top salespeople are really masters of cultivating relationships.

Have you been cultivating relationships with your friends, customers and prospects?

2 Responses to “Selling is About Relationships”

  1. on 10 Nov 2007 at 9:38 pm 1.Paul said …

    Martin

    Several things spring to mind when I read your blog.

    First, it is very easy to blame a sales person for giving in to price pressure and giving the product away but they face a high pressure environment where often orders received and sales out of the door are all that are measured.

    As “what gets measured gets done, it encourages the sales person to be very much focused on the sales transaction rather than the relationship.”

    Second, the buyer and seller often have very different agendas.

    While we all talk about win-win relationships, often the buyer is worse than the sales person for providing misleading information in the chase for a better price.

    Now I totally agree that some sales people do fall far too easily into the bad practice of automatic discounting.

    If the buyer is focused on value for money then the sales person must realise that this is a too sided equation. Failure to establish the value side automatically leads to pressure on the price.

    I find pricing fascinating and one of the best books that I’ve come across is “How To Sell At Margins Higher Than Your Competitors” by Steinmetz and Brooks.

    I have not yet reviewed it on The Business Coaching Blog but when I do I think that it may be destined for 4.5 stars and may be even the ultimate but rare full 5 stars.

  2. on 12 Nov 2007 at 7:00 pm 2.Martin Lee said …

    Hi Paul,

    Hmm..interesting book you recommended.

    I think when it comes to pricing, there’s a different price for a different target market.

    A single item can be branded differently and sold at two different price points to different target markets, even though they are exactly the same piece of item.

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