The Power of Customer Relationships
How are you going to conduct business differently from now on? How can you make this the year that all of your social media tools fall into place and take your business up a notch? What strategy will you follow?
To begin, you should not treat any "failures" as anything other than experiences that you learn and grow from. The bottom line is that we have to fight and fight hard for every sale that we go after. So, what' going to keep you in the ring?
No matter what direction you take personally in your sales strategies, you should always keep the following in mind:
Before going any further, at the risk of sounding redundant, THE CUSTOMER IS STILL PRIORITY #1 and will always expect and demand you to treat them as such. Nothing else that is said about selling will matter as much as the fact that you must lead your business — no matter what it is — with your customer's needs above all else. Keeping this in mind, there are some things that you will need to do to continue to show your client that you are the person and/or the company who will continue to successfully give them what they need.
- Allow yourself to think big — to think outside of the box — at all times. Go after those larger customers or accounts. Sure, there are many small fish in the sea that may be easier to feed off of, but if you never go after the larger ones, you will never know what you are capable of.
- Always put yourself in the customer's shoes. Try to think about things from his or her point of view. Sometimes in business, we get so myopic in attending to the details that we forget for a moment that it is the relationship that is most important.
- If you haven't done so already, learn about or continue to learn about the social media tools that are available to help grow your business. Network! Network! Network! Explore new ways to reach your audience and once you find them, be sure to continue to keep them engaged and coming back for more.
- Find what works for you. You may read a lot of different information from people telling you that if you do this, you will get more sales. Not every technique will work in every industry or every situation. That's why it's important to stay on top of your social media sites by keeping information current and by continuing to work hard to find that niche that will have you standing out in front of the masses. Be real, be transparent, and build your network one relationship at a time.
- Write a blog — Writing a blog allows people to really get a feeling for who you are — what you are passionate about, and it connects you to your audience on a more personal level. It's when people start leaving comments and posts that you begin to realize how important this step is in building your brand; it makes the social media process less "non-human.”
So, start by taking inventory. Embrace it all — the good and the bad — and get rid of any "baggage" that is going to hold you back. People and their needs change every day and being in sales means that we stay on top of the needs of our clients at all times and always keep our eyes and ears open to "hear" what they are telling us.
