Are you important to your customer – or are you just a time waster?
I spend a lot of time talking about what is important to the customer. Today, I’d like to shift gears and talk about who is important to your customer. Is it you? Or is it your boss? The engineers? Technical staff? Production? Or someone else?
This came to mind as I was working with a client last week. The client had a fairly new salesperson who had to fire an unprofitable customer, and was having trouble doing so. The owner of the company, with the best of intentions, told the salesperson (who was not exactly brimming with self-confidence) to tell the customer that it was his decision to fire them, and not hers. Now the customer doesn’t seem to believe that they have actually been fired. Why not? It’s simple, and I’ll tell you.
The customer won’t accept the decision because he didn’t get to talk to the admitted decision maker. By telling the customer that the ‘boss’ made the decision, the salesperson completely disempowered herself and made herself look small and unimportant to the customer. The decision to fire the customer was the right one; the circumstances made them not only unprofitable but difficult. But the decision not to have the salesperson ‘own’ the decision made it so that the customer didn’t accept the firing.
I’ve been there before. I once had to fire a customer in an industrial sales job that I had. I had to do so because they were unprofitable and weren’t making my company any money – which is to say that they weren’t making ME any money for the inordinate amount of time I spent with them. My boss made the same offer to me (blame him). Instead, I looked the customer in the eye and explained that my company was not profiting from their business, and neither was I. Either the pricing had to change or we couldn’t serve their needs any more. They went elsewhere for six months and then returned at a profitable price.
Look, I get it. Salespeople are trained to push off decisions on “the boss” all the time. When I first started selling cars, I worked at a dealership that used the old system of ‘taking the offer to the boss’ and seeing what he said. The salespeople weren’t perceived to be the negotiators, nor were they empowered to really negotiate. Ultimately the customer ended up wanting to talk to ‘the boss’ most of the time, and ‘the boss’ had to get involved in the sale about half the time.
When I left that dealership, I went to another one that had a radically different stance. At this one, my manager would ask me what car I was working, and if there was a trade in, he’d go look at it. Then he’d tell me, “OK, this is where we have to be at a minimum. You know you get paid on profit, get what you can get.” It was a revelation. I sold more cars at that dealership, achieved higher profits and commissions, and rarely did my customers even consider asking to speak to ‘the boss.’ Why?
Because they already felt they were dealing with someone important. And we achieved better results. Like I said, the owner’s ‘blame me’ idea came from a very good place; he was trying to ease the blow for his salesperson. But there were unintended consequences. Much of the time, however, the consequences aren’t unintended. Companies like to keep salespeople in the dark, and in truth, too many salespeople simply lack the courage to stand up to the customer. Neither is helpful. Here’s what the customer wants from you:
They want to believe that you (the salesperson) have the power to make decisions that affect them. Not just discounts, but service levels, timing, etc.
They want to believe that you can create positive outcomes for them.
They want to trust that you have their best interests at heart.
They realize that you need to make a profit to stay in business. If they don’t, find another customer.
They want to believe that you can help them solve their problems – or can and will connect them with the resources to do so. If you’re selling a technical product, you don’t need to be an engineer-level expert. You do, however, need to have a basic level of competence, and you need to know when to get out of the way.
Customers can buy almost anything these days without the intervention of salespeople. Hence, the only reason for salespeople to be involved is to make the buying experience more positive. By doing so, you earn the time and energy they spend with you. The only way to do that is to make yourself the ‘important person’ in the relationship.
