It's Nothing Personal, It's Just Business

I read the article below and found it timely for our company. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift toward more networking, both virtual (online with LinkedIn, FaceBook, Twitter, et al) and in person (Chamber mixers, HR groups, community involvement, etc) with the idea of keeping our sales pipeline full. However, to make enough contacts to keep the pipeline full you can't really spend enough time with anyone to develop a relationship so don't be confused by what we are asking you to do.

As a sales pro, you have to look at everyone you meet as a potential client or as someone who will lead you to a potential client. Even time spent meeting competitors at industry functions can lead to a lot of business since order sharing is very prevelent these days.

Please don't make the mistake of spending a LOT of your time with a FEW people at online networking, chamber mixers, HR group functions, etc. trying develop relationships. Take advantage of the opportunity to spend a LITTLE time with a LOT of people to develop contacts.

Following this logic, you can see that your best prospecting opportunities lie in phone work and large gatherings of people representing businesses that you can help. You can reach the most people, by a HUGE margin, online but the contact is more difficult to cultivate and therefore will take longer to develop, but the shear numbers that you can reach make online networking and email worthwhile and very effective as follow-up tools.

By now you're wondering what happened to developing relationships. Relationships happen AFTER the sale. Doyle Slayton explains it all very well in the following post from his blog. Read on!

Doyle Slayton | Jul 15, 2009 | Comments 2

If you walk into a room of hard core sales hunters and say, “It’s all about relationships,” your audience would likely cringe. Not necessarily because they don’t like the idea, but because they can’t relate to the concept. It simply isn’t true in their world. It’s one of those things that sounds good, but it isn’t reality.

On the other hand, if you were to make the same statement in a room filled with account managers and business owners, you’d likely get a lot of head nodding and agreement. They would easily relate and understand the concept.

I believe that “generally speaking” the relationship begins after the sale, not before. Hold on a minute… before you jump out of your chair… let me explain.

I’ll start with a couple of stories…

I used to sit next to a sales person who would be on the phone making cold calls. They’d say, “I’d like to come by and visit with you, drop off my business card, and introduce myself.” Most often the prospect would say, “We are not interested in what you have to offer,” and the sales person would reply, “I’m not looking for a quick sale, I’m looking to build a relationship.”

On the other end of the spectrum, I was talking to one of our top performers. This rep is as high a producer as I’ve ever seen. I asked, “What do you think about the concept of… it’s all about relationships?” The sales person broke out into laughter and said, “Relationships? I don’t even know them! I don’t want a relationship. I have friends for that kind of thing.”

Sure, the sales rep in the second story needs a little molding, but if I had to choose the best sales person to develop, I would choose the second one every time. As long as they are a person of high integrity, a team player, and they agree to follow the rules, they will be a superstar!

Let’s circle back around and revisit the statement I made earlier. “The relationship begins after the sale, not before.” I’ve seen sales reps try to hold accounts hostage claiming they have a relationship… yet the sales person never seems to get the prospect to come on board as a client.

If there are no results, there is no relationship. Period! I’ve seen too many people waste their time on relationship building activities like networking events and who knows what else. I’ve never seen that produce sustainable results… not ever!

Do you really think the majority of your prospects are interested in building a relationship? We might be pretty good people, but I don’t think any of us are that cool.

During the sales process it comes down to other important key factors. Instead of saying, “It’s all about relationships,” end the statement with words like Trust, Follow-Through, Creating Value, and Reputation. Those are the things that matter most when trying to close deals.

Ok, point made. Let’s transition to look at our current client base. Now we are talking about relationships! We want a strong relationship with our clients and they also want one with us. It begins with our product and our service living up to expectations. We need strong customer service reps, account managers, and an operations team that will keep these clients happy. But, don’t get too comfortable. One thing is certain. Drop the ball one too many times, and the “relationship” is over.

Finally, I also think it is important to have business partnerships with other service providers where a relationship makes sense. I’m talking about other sales people that I can bring into my deals to offer ancillary products when needed. If this partnership helps win more deals… I’m willing to claim that as a powerful relationship!

I know it is difficult to hear. When it comes to the front line, hunting for new sales opportunities, the cold hard truth in the old saying still applies, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”