Relationship Selling – How Much Is It Worth to You?

Ever stand in line at the post office waiting to mail a package or buy stamps? At our post office there are five windows. One clerk. No hurry. Oops! Time for another break. Would you continue doing business with them when they treat you as an interruption to their day? Of course. You have no choice. They have a monopoly. Your complaints about their service mean nothing to them. They know it takes an act of Congress to get them fired. At the other end of the spectrum you have stores like Nordstrom’s. They have a loyal customer base. Ask any of their customers why they return, and the first thing they mention is the excellent service. Both the post office and Nordstrom’s are involved in relationship selling. One cares. The other could care less.

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Give Them a Reason to Buy from You – It’s Not About Selling Stupid

(“It’s most interesting to me that every single company in the world tries to teach salespeople how to sell. Nothing could be more backwards or ineffective. What they should be teaching is how to position, how to promote, how to provide value, how to communicate, how to make presentations, how to engage and how to connect. If you employ my first rule of selling, People don’t like to be sold, but they love to buy, then you will understand that learning ‘how to sell’ goes against the grain of human nature.” – Jeffrey Gitomer, The Little Black Book of Connections)

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Relationship Selling – Lips Flapping in the Breeze?

How often have you heard business owners, managers, and salespeople say “we’re a relationship business”? What does that mean? How do you sell the relationship? How do you keep the relationship? A relationship means frequent communication.

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Cold Calling on Large and Fortune 500 Companies – Five Things I Learned

Many salespeople tell me they’re intimidated by (a) calling on larger companies, and (b) going to the top on the first call. Cold calling on Fortune 500 companies last week, here’s some information I gathered that you might file away to overcome your reluctance. The following is from just one morning’s calls.

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Cold Calling – Blowing Milk Out Your Nose

“How long do you plan to be in business?” Roy Williams asks in one of his trilogy Wizard of Ads books. What are you doing to make sure you’re here tomorrow? You advertise. Good. Television is out of the question of course. Too much moola. Your Yellow Page ad has that phone ringing off the hook. What’s that? Oh? It’s not? Well, at least you’ve got your newspaper ads running every day. Oh? Not doing those either? Never saw the results you expected? Hmmm. How about direct mail? Surely that will work. Huh? You’ve heard too many horror stories of monies lost? (Believe me…they’re true!)

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