Bringing Intensity To Relationship Selling

When's the last time you wondered if you should bring more intensity into your selling process?

Maybe you suspect that your sales would increase if you were more aggressive. Yet bringing intensity may not be your style and therefore is too far outside of your comfort zone to be effective for you. Maybe you should consider relationship selling.

Last week while speaking to a group of business professionals a man in the audience asked me a brilliant question. He wanted to know how to blend the old style of “hunting big game” and the more current style of  “relationship selling” to client interactions.

To clarify, the hunting big game type of sales approach is about going in for the kill. Aggressively closing the deal. Those of you who've seen or at least heard of the movie, Glengarry, Glenn Ross are probably familiar with the phrase, “Coffee's for closers.” This is a much more intense way of selling. And in my humble opinion, it's also an outdated approach.

Relationship selling is about developing rapport. It about taking the time to understand the client's needs and then delivering a solution to meet those needs. Relationship selling is what I teach. It's my belief that when you make the relationship the priority, the selling process flows naturally.

So when this question was posed, I was excited to offer my thoughts. I knew instantly that I'd share my answer with the loyal Sales Maven Community.

Relationship Selling: How To Blend The Old & The New Approach To Sales

The place to bring intensity to the selling process is in knowing what you want to accomplish before you start the meeting and to keep it front of mind throughout the meeting. Too often people start client meetings without having put any thought into what the outcome of the meeting should be. When you go into a meeting without an outcome in mind it's the equivalent of starting a road trip from Washington state to New York state without a GPS.  There's a good chance there'll be some wrong turns and it may take you much longer to get there than if you had a GPS to start.

Before each meeting, you should know what the logical next step is you want to accomplish and what needs to happen in the meeting to get you and the client to the next step. It's moving through the step by step approach where you exchange dollars for services.

Relationship Selling Continued…

And you avoid leaving client meetings without having the next step scheduled. Telling a client you'll send them a proposal is not enough. Set a date to review the proposal. This means a date and time scheduled on both of your calendars. Without the date and time set, you're likely to never get the client on the phone again. You'll spend useless time and energy wondering if/when you'll hear from the client. You slow down the process when you don't have the next step scheduled.

Being intentional and even a little intense about keeping the process moving is crucial to both you and your client getting the needs met. This intensity should not take away from the rapport and the relationship building you do in your client meetings.

Wishing you continued success this week.

Agree? Disagree? Additional comments or thoughts on this article? Please share.