Customer Relationships
Relationships Are Everything
By Brian Tracy
Aug 3, 2004, 12:13

(Note: Purchase Brian Tracy’s 24 Techniques for Closing the Sale Video:
http://www.performfirst.net/u/bt/b.asp?id=1959&p=catalog/product.asp?ProductID=77)

Your Foundation For Success
Relationship selling is the core of all modern selling strategies. Your ability to develop and maintain long-term customer relationships is the foundation for your success as a salesperson and your success in business. Relationship selling requires a clear understanding of the dynamics of the selling process as they are experienced by your customer.

Propose A Business Marriage
For your customer, a buying decision usually means a decision to enter into a long-term relationship with you and your company. It is very much like a "business marriage." Before the customer decides to buy, he can take you or leave you. He doesn't need you or your company. He has a variety of options and choices open to him, including not buying anything at all. But when your customer makes a decision to buy from you and gives you money for the product or service you are selling, he becomes dependent on you. And since he has probably had bad buying experiences in the past, he is very uneasy and uncertain about getting into this kind of dependency relationship.

Fulfill Your Promises
What if you let the customer down? What if your product does not work as you promised? What if you don't service it and support it as you promised? What if it breaks down and he can't get it replaced? What if the product or service is completely inappropriate for his needs? These are real dilemmas that go through the mind of every customer when it comes time to make the critical buying decision.

Focus On The Relationship
The reason why choosing the right career, why doing what you love to do is so important, is because unless you really care about your work, you will never be motivated to persist at it until you become excellent. And until you become excellent at what you're doing, you can't move ahead.

Build A Solid Trust Bond
In many cases, the quality of your relationship with the customer is the competitive advantage that enables you to edge out others who may have similar products and services. The quality of the trust bond that exists between you and your customers can be so strong that no other competitor can get between you.

Keep Your Customers For Life
The single biggest mistake that causes salespeople to lose customers is taking those customers for granted. This is a form of "customer entropy." It is when the salesperson relaxes his efforts and begins to ignore the customer. Almost 70 percent of customers who walked away from their existing suppliers later replied that they made the change primarily because of a lack of attention from the company.

Once you have invested the time and made the efforts necessary to build a high-quality, trust-based relationship with your customer, you must maintain that relationship for the life of your business. You must never take it for granted.

Action Exercises
First, focus on building a high quality relationship with each customer by treating your customer so well that he comes back, buys again and refers you to his friends.
Second, pay attention to your existing customers. Tell them you appreciate them. Look for ways to thank them and encourage them to come back and do business with you again.

Purchase Brian Tracy’s 24 Techniques for Closing the Sale Video: http://www.performfirst.net/u/bt/b.asp?id=1959&p=catalog/product.asp?ProductID=77

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Copyright 2003

About Brian Tracy:
Brian Tracy is one of America’s leading authorities on the development of human potential and personal effectiveness. He is a dynamic and entertaining speaker with a wonderful ability to inform and inspire audiences toward peak performance and high levels of achievement.

He is an internationally known and respected authority addressing 450,000 people each year on leadership, management, sales, personal development, strategic planning, goal-setting, time management, creativity, and many other diverse topics. Brian has worked with IBM, Arthur Andersen, McDonnell Douglas and The Million Dollar Round Table.

Brian Tracy has produced more than 300 different audio and video learning programs covering the entire spectrum of human and corporate performance. These programs, researched and developed for more than 25 years, are some of the most effective learning tools in the world.

Contact Information:
Brian Tracy International
462 Stevens Ave, Suite 202
Solana Beach, CA 92075
1-858-481-2977

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