More than just landing a sale…

Building and sustaining business relationships are critical for long term sales success .

“Now that I’ve enjoyed some success securing business from new clients, I’m worried about what I need to do to sustain my sales record.”

That’s a comment that I hear quite often in my group discussions with clients. And for good reason. Indeed, landing a new client or a new order is always a great accomplishment. But if you look what you’re doing in terms of building a relationship, you’re still only at the “hello” stage, with an entirely new stage just waiting for you to add your personalized touch, so that this new connection you’ve established can thrive.

If you’re setting your sights on being a top-ranked sales person you have to look at the business relationships you are forging as long-term activities. That’s what the top-10 percent of sales professionals do—and their results speak for themselves. So let’s take a moment and consider why it’s important to build and sustain business relationships.

Human beings are social creatures—all of us crave some kind of meaningful connection with others. And you, more than anyone else is in the H2H sales business. That is Human to Human Selling. That desire for relationships governs how we behave, as well as the choices we make. Buying and selling are activities that are not immune from this observable phenomenon. Buyers tend to buy from people they like. And sellers thrive when they see what they are doing as a genuine opportunity to engage others. So it’s crucial for you to understand how they fit in those relationships, and to recognize what they need to keep working on to ensure that they sustain healthy, lasting connections with others.

Whether it’s personal or business-related, there is a vital element that goes into every relationship that we build and sustain, and that’s trust. As I remind my clients in sales training exercises, it takes less than a minute to make an impression with a decision maker. Make the right impression and you will develop trust and earn the sale. Sustain that trust and you could have a loyal customer for life.

Practicing kindness, being honest and forthright—these are virtues that when demonstrated with sincerity and conviction go a long way to building trust between people. These are gestures that you need to be constantly mindful of in how you relate to people you do business with. And that’s not just while landing the sale. It’s in the follow-up calls, the and the office visits you make, as well as at any other opportunity (client events, open houses, charity events etc) that presents itself for you to interact with and engage your customers.

 “I don’t really like him, but I trust him.”

That’s a common expression heard sometimes in conversations. And frankly, I don’t buy into the idea. You can like someone and not really trust them. You can’t find someone trustworthy and not like them. Experience teaches us that likeness leads to trust, trust lead to business, and more important, it leads to repeat business, and repeat orders. That’s the kind of experience you want to seek out and duplicate as often as you can. Because that’s one of the secrets behind the art of selling more in less time to more people.

Dedicated to increasing your sales!