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Click Board! After Action Review Source The After Action Review is a extremely highly effective technique that helps teams and organizations learn how to achieve excellence. This .pdf file has the basic idea. http://www.fireleadership.g ov/toolbox/after_action_re view/aar.pdf The Art of Conversation Here is a guide for the shy person. What do you say after you say hello? What would you say after you said hello to Paul McCartney? Michael Jordan? Be prepared. http://www.entertainmates. com/experts/conversation. asp |
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Well-Spoken
"Good teaching is
one-fourth preparation
and three-fourths pure
theatre>"
Gail Goodwin
"No one realizes how
beautiful it is to travel
until he comes home
and rests his head on
his old, familiar
pillow."
Lin Yutang
"Good teaching is
one-fourth preparation
and three-fourths pure
theatre>"
Gail Goodwin
"No one realizes how
beautiful it is to travel
until he comes home
and rests his head on
his old, familiar
pillow."
Lin Yutang
ManagerZine Archive Favorite
19. Getting to the Heart of
Selling: Part 5--Stay In Touch
Once a relationship has been formed, it must go
somewhere. The salesperson can be the guide.
How can a salesperson do that? How can a
salesperson spend time relationship building with
old customers when they are under pressure to
produce more revenue from new prospects?
The tendency of many sales people is to overlook
an established customer’s need for contact,
direction and more ideas. In fact, many customers
will end a relationship with a vendor because
ideas stop flowing. When customers feel they are
just being “serviced” by sales people, the
relationship built around problem solving and
special knowledge of customer problems and
needs seems to be diminished. There is a let-
down after the sale because the problem-solver
turns into an administrator.
This happens all too soon. There is a tendency for
the customer to look for more from their vendor
just when the primary salesperson is putting the
relationship on autopilot.
So, staying in touch is an overlooked idea.
Monitoring customer satisfaction, continuing to
add value on an ongoing basis and building a long
range plan, however informal, for the customer
feeds the relationship. Master salespeople have
a direction for each customer in mind. Now that
they are aware of the customer’s business
strategy, needs and future plans, they should be
able to craft something of a product and service
migration strategy, at least in their own minds.
To implement that strategy, salespeople need to
make additional sales calls which have value and
bring fresh ideas to the customer. Now that a
relationship based on value has been established,
the salesperson’s role is to be a consultant,
validating customer needs, sounding out different
customer’s views of those needs and building
support for recommended solutions.
The tendency here is to become complacent.
Even experienced salespeople fall into the trap of
“stopping by for the order” or just to check in and
say hello. In these competitive times, a good
sales professional will plan each call, figuring out
how to leave a sense a value behind. Some
salespeople will provide useful ideas to educate
customers about industry developments or
stimulate a customer’s interest in new ways of
doing things. Others will perform a service for the
customer, such as collecting and analyzing
product usage information. The idea is that in
order to continue to get business, the
salesperson has to continue to add useful value
to the relationship.
Staying in touch takes many forms—from phone
calls, to notes and letters with clippings to catch a
customer’s interest attached, to formal sales calls,
invitations to vendor events such as user
meetings and informal get togethers outside the
office. Whatever the form of the interaction,
customers should get something useful to keep
the sense of value from the salesperson alive and
fresh.
In the corporate world, some master salespeople
schedule a formal account review once or twice a
year with important accounts. Over several hours,
the salesperson and a senior manager from the
vendor company with appropriate technical
experts meet with the customer and other
stakeholders. The customer reports progress
with using the product or service and the benefits
derived; the sales team acknowledges their
vendor efforts to make the product or service
effective, and each team recognizes success in a
mutually beneficial relationship. Problems are
aired and solved, improvement ideas are
exchanged, new developments are previewed
and plans are made for continuing the
relationship, and then everyone goes to a suitable
celebratory dinner.
Even excellent corporate salespeople send their
“A” list, their very best customers personal notes
about new lines or products of potential interest.
Financial planners, real estate agents,
accountants, insurance people, stockbrokers, and
lawyers create newsletters that check-in with the
customer base with new information, interesting
ideas to save money, expand the business, or
whatever. The principle is to stay in touch with
value-laden ideas no matter how physically remote
from the customer the salesperson is.
19. Getting to the Heart of
Selling: Part 5--Stay In Touch
Once a relationship has been formed, it must go
somewhere. The salesperson can be the guide.
How can a salesperson do that? How can a
salesperson spend time relationship building with
old customers when they are under pressure to
produce more revenue from new prospects?
The tendency of many sales people is to overlook
an established customer’s need for contact,
direction and more ideas. In fact, many customers
will end a relationship with a vendor because
ideas stop flowing. When customers feel they are
just being “serviced” by sales people, the
relationship built around problem solving and
special knowledge of customer problems and
needs seems to be diminished. There is a let-
down after the sale because the problem-solver
turns into an administrator.
This happens all too soon. There is a tendency for
the customer to look for more from their vendor
just when the primary salesperson is putting the
relationship on autopilot.
So, staying in touch is an overlooked idea.
Monitoring customer satisfaction, continuing to
add value on an ongoing basis and building a long
range plan, however informal, for the customer
feeds the relationship. Master salespeople have
a direction for each customer in mind. Now that
they are aware of the customer’s business
strategy, needs and future plans, they should be
able to craft something of a product and service
migration strategy, at least in their own minds.
To implement that strategy, salespeople need to
make additional sales calls which have value and
bring fresh ideas to the customer. Now that a
relationship based on value has been established,
the salesperson’s role is to be a consultant,
validating customer needs, sounding out different
customer’s views of those needs and building
support for recommended solutions.
The tendency here is to become complacent.
Even experienced salespeople fall into the trap of
“stopping by for the order” or just to check in and
say hello. In these competitive times, a good
sales professional will plan each call, figuring out
how to leave a sense a value behind. Some
salespeople will provide useful ideas to educate
customers about industry developments or
stimulate a customer’s interest in new ways of
doing things. Others will perform a service for the
customer, such as collecting and analyzing
product usage information. The idea is that in
order to continue to get business, the
salesperson has to continue to add useful value
to the relationship.
Staying in touch takes many forms—from phone
calls, to notes and letters with clippings to catch a
customer’s interest attached, to formal sales calls,
invitations to vendor events such as user
meetings and informal get togethers outside the
office. Whatever the form of the interaction,
customers should get something useful to keep
the sense of value from the salesperson alive and
fresh.
In the corporate world, some master salespeople
schedule a formal account review once or twice a
year with important accounts. Over several hours,
the salesperson and a senior manager from the
vendor company with appropriate technical
experts meet with the customer and other
stakeholders. The customer reports progress
with using the product or service and the benefits
derived; the sales team acknowledges their
vendor efforts to make the product or service
effective, and each team recognizes success in a
mutually beneficial relationship. Problems are
aired and solved, improvement ideas are
exchanged, new developments are previewed
and plans are made for continuing the
relationship, and then everyone goes to a suitable
celebratory dinner.
Even excellent corporate salespeople send their
“A” list, their very best customers personal notes
about new lines or products of potential interest.
Financial planners, real estate agents,
accountants, insurance people, stockbrokers, and
lawyers create newsletters that check-in with the
customer base with new information, interesting
ideas to save money, expand the business, or
whatever. The principle is to stay in touch with
value-laden ideas no matter how physically remote
from the customer the salesperson is.