The Advisor’s Corner

Strategic Selling: Influencers

October 5, 2015/in Extraordinary Customer/Client Service/by Tom Doescher

Probably some of the best advice given in The New Strategic Selling, by Robert B. Miller, Stephen E. Heiman, Tad Tuleja and J.W. Marriott, is that they offer their readers a way to understand how companies buy products and services. The authors suggest there are four buying influences:

Economic Buying Influence — Who at the customer/client will give the final economic approval to buy? There have been plenty of situations over the years where people have missed this one. Is there money in the budget? Will the owner/CEO have to approve? Is someone else’s approval required? Do you know that individual?
User Buying Influences — This one is kind of obvious, but here’s a recent example. I have a client who has strong relationships with the owner/CEOs at many companies, but he doesn’t know the users yet. He needs to identify the users with buying influence and develop relationships with them, too.
Technical Buying Influences — These are the gatekeepers. They may not always have big titles, but they have veto rights.
Coaches — The role of the coach is to guide you in the sales process. I like to call them “insiders.” I would highly recommend that you establish an “insider” relationship with every major customer/client. This should be someone who, for whatever reason, likes you and your company, and wants you to be successful. I am NOT suggesting anything unethical. I will probably touch on this subject more in my upcoming series of best practices for obtaining new customers/clients.

The authors do a great job of explaining each role. In my experience, many sales have been lost because there were not relationships in place with all four types of influencers.

Have you lost any sales due to this?

Strategic Selling: Ideal Customers

September 28, 2015/in Extraordinary Customer/Client Service/by Tom Doescher

Later this year, I plan to post a series of suggestions related to the best practices for obtaining new customers/clients. As part of the preparation for that series, I recently finished reading The New Strategic Selling, by Miller, Heiman, Tuleja and Marriott. I would recommend this book, especially if your job responsibilities include business development. The authors touch on several of my favorite subjects, which I will comment on in the next several blogs.

What is an ideal customer/client? (Honestly, is that something you’ve ever thought about?) The authors offer the following list of “best customer” characteristics:

They trust my company’s performance.
They have innovative, progressive management.
They’re loyal to the vendors selected.
They’re committed to quality control.
They’re willing to pay for “value-added” aspects of my product.
They demonstrate the highest business ethics and integrity.
They want a win-win relationship on every sale.

The authors follow that up with a list of “worst customer” characteristics:

They’re inflexible on price.
They’re slow in making buying decisions.
They have no loyalty to my company or to me.
They have an authoritarian management system.
They’re secretive and unwilling to cooperate.
They want me to lose so they can win.

I would highly recommend evaluating your customers/clients with the above criteria, plus anything else that’s important to you. And then take action. With the generally strong economy, now is a great time to separate from your worst customer/client. It’s scary, but you’ll be glad you did it — and so will your team!

Words, Words, Words

September 21, 2015/in Extraordinary Customer/Client Service/by Tom Doescher

I have written on the subject of “words” before, but I recently spent a little more time thinking about the topic while reading some very good business books. I believe the words you use influence and have a definite impact on how you think and behave.

In the books I was reading, many of the authors refer to their clients/customers as “accounts.” I assume they mean accounts receivable — or maybe accounts payable? (Just kidding.)

Seriously, though, if you’re the client/customer, would you like to be referred to as an “account”?

I would highly recommend proudly referring to the companies you serve as your customers/clients. I bet you worked really hard to obtain their business, and you continue to work hard to provide them with great products and services.

If I’m missing something, let me know what it is.

Strategic Selling: Influencers

Strategic Selling: Ideal Customers

Words, Words, Words

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