Customer Experience #1? Are you helping your client or Devouring them!

Anyone who has read my other posts knows that I am a big fan of Mahan Khalsa.  Mahan has a great perspectiveon the dysfunctional relationship between buys and sellers and why that relationship has become so dysfunctional over the years.  He also has a great perspective on how you can overcome this by being upfront, honest, ethical, and by doing the right thing.  I have always had the philosophy that a sales rep’s job is not to SELL but to find a customer that has a need that we solve where the FIT is right.

I once worked for an organization that saw things differently.  During a sales conference for the company one of the sales directors went into a speech on how we are the LIONS and our clients are the PREY!  He even GROWLED!  He said our job as sales people is to find the prey, pounce on it, and devour it!  No lie, he was playing the part and all.  It always seemed to me that Sales People focus too much energy on trying persuade and too little energy trying to find the right fit for their product.  I always think about when you go to buy shoes.  Would you ever buy a pair of shoes that are too small?  Even if the sales rep spent hours trying to convince you that they are right fit for you.  NO it just does not feel right.  Shoe Sales People spend time educating you on the differences between shoes and ENABLING YOU TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION.  Most car sales people (from my experience) do the opposite.  They try to convince you that you need all these extra things that you don’t need.  A good number of IT Sales People do the same.

So it is refreshing that recently I have seen a ton of posts that point to some of the same ideas that I have.  One that jumped out to me is from Deborah Schultz

She writes:

“At the center is the CUSTOMER and I don’t want things PUSHED to me and I don’t want to be MANAGED.   This strongly demonstrates the dramatic need to create new attitudes and language around how to interact with the customer.  This means redefining the traditional silo-ed roles of marketer, advertiser, pr, customer experience, product design. “ 

She also points to a good article that looks at how Amazon.com uses money that would otherwise be spent on TV ADS to improve their offering.  Read it!

So it is time to get your company to provide a good product that solves a real need in the market so that you can spend time finding clients that have that need and educating them on how you can help, truly help them!

Jill Konrath has a good article on how your company should become a Thought Leader in your field to increase sales.  My company recently spent money to do just that and we are now putting on CIO Roundtable Events that attract Top leaders to our company.  Stop spending time trying to persuade and start spending time and money HELPING! http://sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/selling/2006/10/thought_leaders.html

 For more on Mahan Khalsa and to subscribe to his Tip of the Week email go here: http://www.franklincovey.com/letsgetreal/bios.html

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