The term ‘Relationship Selling’ is often bandied about by sales managers and sales people without properly defining what it really means.I often hear “We are in relationship selling” or “We need relationship sales people” however what I do not hear being asked is:

• What type of relationship are we talking about?
• What type of relationship are we looking for?
• What do we mean by relationship selling anyway?

Relationship selling happens in any place where relationships are important. Thus when a husband and wife are negotiating about something, they will be more successful if they both consider the relationship as well as whatever it is they each want.

Most people’s intentions are to have healthy viable business relationships, but this does not always happen, just like in our personal lives.

And I see many businesses and sales people in trouble because they have set up the wrong types of relationships with their clients to begin with.

If you do not clearly define what you mean by Relationship Selling then you may end up with client relationships like these:

• Abusive relationships
• aggressive clients who bully and intimidate sales people/ suppliers, or the other way round
• Professional Visitor relationships
• Calling in for a chat, coffee, etc. In short being paid to have a social life.
• Master/servant  relationships
• ‘You are here to serve my every need.’ I see this all too often in business banking where some clients take advantage of the ‘over servicing’ of some business bankers using them a free accounting service.  I am sure the accountants won’t be happy with this loss of revenue.  I know the client is happy but is it a healthy relationship in the long run?
• Big brother relationships
• ‘You’ll do as I say or else…”
• Win:lose or lose:win relationships (someone has to lose out)
• Friendships at the expense of profitable business partnerships (see professional visitor)
• Broken promises relationships
• “I’ll get you in here if you give me this…” but it never comes through despite all those promises
• Exploitative or Deceitful relationships
• double dipping or tricking people into something they were not aware of. For instance a course participant on one of our recent sales training programs told of a telco sales person who sold the handset separate to the call plan when in fact the handset was already part of the plan, so the customer paid twice of the handset.  This is fraud and can easily ruin your business’ brand and reputation over night.
• ‘I work for you instead of my company’ relationship
• sales people siding with the client by giving away excessive margins, products, etc. at the expense of the company.  This is actually theft.
• Hostage or Handcuff relationships
• ‘I have to deal with but you really add no value to me or my business and I really resent that.’
• ‘I have to deal with you because my parent company says so.’
• Your payment terms are disregarded by bigger businesses because they only pay at 60+ days (not the 14 or 30 days you agreed to)
• Relationships under pressure
• Sales people having to meet monthly quotas hence they may use more pressured methods than perhaps they would like. This is a hazardous practice, as it may seriously damage an ongoing relationship, putting additional pressure on the hapless sales person who falls into the dangerous chasm.  It amounts to selling stuff to make a quota not build a viable relationship.

And so on.

• Do you have any of these types of relationships in your business?
• What types of relationships are you attracting to your business?
• Are they healthy or not?
• What are they making or costing you?

Some of the relationships mentioned can be particularly relevant for SME’s when dealing with big business where, for instance, your size can be used against you.  I also see sales people in relationship sales roles for big businesses as well as SME’s who over service existing client at the expense of selling and winning in new business thinking this is good relationship selling.  It is not, as it sets up unrealistic expectations and costs too much.

So Relationship Selling needs to be clearly defined or else we are at risk of creating unhealthy, unprofitable relationships.

All relationships change and are continually evolving over time for better or for worse.

I recall a great saying I heard and often refer to which I think gets to the heart of this:

You have friends for a reason, a season, or a life time.

The same is true for business / client relationships too.

First of all consider this:

Buying is a value judgment made in the mind of a person who has the ability to purchase, a genuine need/ want and the capacity to pay.

Selling is understanding that mind set and the accompanying values and priorities, and delivering on expectations through effective communication (such as questioning and listening), ideas generation and collaboration, creative problem solving and relevant solution generation, and gaining commitment to move forward together.

Whether it is business to business or retail to consumer selling, this definition holds true.

Therefore Relationship Selling is an extension of this where the primary objective is the building of long-term viable business relationships with customers from which repeat and/or additional business will flow and a win:win outcome is achieved for both parties whether it is for a for a reason, a season or a life time.

In my research for this piece I also came across an article ‘How to have a healthy relationship’ which, while referring to personal relationships, was quite pertinent to business relationships and in particular Relationship Selling.  It referred to the following steps:

1. Do not expect anyone to be responsible for your happiness
2. Make and keep clear agreements
3. Use communication
4. Approach your relationship as a learning experience
5. Tell the unarguable truth.
6. Do not do anything for your partner if it comes with an expectation of reciprocation.
7. Forgive one another
8. Review your expectations especially attitudes towards money
9. Be Responsible
10. Appreciate yourself and your partner.
11. Admit your mistakes and say sorry.
12. Spend some quality time together

You can find the full article at http://www.wikihow.com/Have-a-Healthy-Relationship

In addition I would like to add the following tips for sales people and their respective businesses.

Make sure you:

• Clearly define your level of service/products offerings and pricing.
• Know what you are good at and clearly communicate and deliver that.
• Create a network of businesses who are experts in allied fields to you so you can refer your clients to them when a needs arises you cannot fill.
• Learn to say ‘No’.
• Stand up for yourself, just because you are small doesn’t mean you can’t be a professional, well regarded business in your market.
• Don’t take it personally.
• Know the line between friendship and professional business relationships

So in closing I wish you all the very best with all your relationships both personal and professional.  May they be healthy, happy and prosperous for all.

Happy selling.

Welcome to 2009.

Over the summer break I was talking with a number of friends about what 2009 will hold for us, our families, our communities and our businesses.  Without exception, we discussed the current and possible effects of the GFC (global financial crisis) on our markets and especially on our thinking and our actions moving forward.   We discussed the importance of open, clear and honest communication and decisive leadership, clear goals and defining what we stand for.

We discussed the fact that it would be very hard for people to make ‘easy’ money this year  i.e. playing the stock market, etc. No more making money by just moving money around.  And that people now needed do some real work to get real revenue coming in the door.  (not that some of us weren’t doing that already.)

It was mentioned that the current market conditions call for people to draw upon the ‘real’ money making skills of ‘Selling’ and any businesses relying solely on:

• Blanket Advertising, or
• Their technical capability, or
• Passive referrals, or
• Brand or reputation. or
• SEO alone (depending on your market model)

will suffer as a result.

And those people and businesses who haven’t integrated their sales and marketing initiatives and invested in developing their sales people’s prospecting and sales skills will be left wanting this year as well.

We acknowledged that this is the year where leadership and people’s real sales fitness levels and skills will be put to the test and further developing our leadership, sales and business development capabilities skills is critical to not only survive but thrive.

Many of the conversations reminded me of the late 80’s and early 90’s markets when I was working as a recruitment consultant and the lessons I learnt in how to really make the most of tough times.  I wrote about this on 4 February 2008 in Watch who you let near your mind

In my opinion, this year calls for focus on 3 key areas:

• Clear and decisive Leadership
• A clear market message of intent
• A proactive, disciplined, ongoing sales effort

This is the year where people and businesses need to prioritise and focus on these core areas that will help them make 2009 work for them and their customers.

The SmartCompany.com.au webinar (15/01/09, download the audio file here for free) featuring IBIS stated about 65% of a business’ success will depend on leadership effectiveness and how honestly and ethically you face the challenges ahead.

I can’t agree more.

My friends and I discussed our leadership approaches and what messages we are putting out to our staff, our clients and our markets.  How we are communicating our intentions to participate in the business world.

Clear plans, goals, honesty, ethics, values and trusted relationships all featured heavily in how we would and should communicate where we stand and what we stand for and how we wanted to be communicated with ourselves.

We didn’t want more hype and ‘promises’ that can’t be backed up by evidence, transparency and trust.  We want to give our people a reason to step up and be counted.  We want our people to be clear about what we do for our customers and confident and competent to get out there and genuinely connect with our market place, our customers.

Having a clear market message your sales people can communicate to customers in a way they can understand, relate to and action is vital in uncertain times.  To illustrate the point, one of my close friends was in New York and London in October 2008 when the GFC was in one of its first full free falls and said the difference was clear.

In New York the atmosphere was distressed, disturbed and directionless, a real helplessness seemed to prevail.  People were complaining that there were no messages being broadcast or communicated at all by the US President or his Administration.  They bemoaned the lack of leadership.  Where as in London, love him or hate him, Gordon Brown was communicating with the media every day about what he and is Administration they were doing.  While people were rightly concerned about the GFC, the atmosphere was somewhat different.  My friend said people were resigned to the fact they needed to deal with the GFC.  Instead of feeling helpless they were already looking for solutions.

In my experience it is better to know if it is good news or bad news than no news at all.  This way you can take action and keep moving forward.  Therefore in uncertain times it is even more vital that our leadership is evident and our market message is being heard and understood with the best intentions and right outcomes.

Here are some questions you might like to consider regarding your key market message:

• What key message(s) are you giving to your prospective market about how you intend to operate this year?
• How is the message(s) being received and understood by your sales people?
• How is the message(s) being delivered by your sales people and received and understood by market?
• How can your customers take action and work with you?
• Can your customers  trust you to be a valid business partner with them in 2009?

Now take your key message and couple this with a Proactive Sales approach.  If you haven’t already, you need make sure you and your sales people know and understand the message and can then get out there to connect with, listen to and understand your customers and prospects so you are in a position to really understand how they think and feel and what decisions they want to make this year and where you will feature in that relationship.

Unlike advertising, selling is the vehicle that gets you in real and direct personal contact with your market, your customers and your prospects.  This is where you have real conversations about real business, real priorities and possible solutions.

If you are not already talking with your customers, referrals and prospects you need to be NOW.

I encourage you to make sure you call as many customers, referrals sources and prospects as possible because, if my 25 years+ sales career is anything to go by, there are a lot of changes happening out there and it’s not all bad news.

In fact when I returned from leave on 12 January I spent the better part of that week calling as many clients, past clients, referrals sources and leads as possible and will continue to do so this year.  The amount of changes, information, leads and opportunities I unearthed as a result of making these calls in one week alone was fantastic.

And if you not convinced, take a leaf out of one of our larger clients who, despite the GFC and really tough market conditions, have prioritised sales fitness as one of their Top 3 business priorities.  The other two being clear leadership and clear market messages.  They have invested heavily in training and up skilling their regional and rural business sales teams in sales vision, planning, sales prospecting and selling process.

Despite the drought and tough times these sales people are out there selling and communicating that they are there to do business and its working.  Even though it is still early days they are finding viable deals and good clients to do work with despite the challenging markets.  They are being supported by their managers, who in turn are trained to deliver effective sales coaching and provide sales leadership to make sure this in a ‘way of life’ not a fad.  They all know this a vital life skill.

By focusing on:

• Clear and decisive Leadership
• A clear market message of intent
• A proactive, disciplined, ongoing sales effort

They have also found there is greater team unity, better cooperation and collaboration with each other and with customers, greater sales results and better margins.

So don’t hesitate!    Get clear, get focused, get active.

There is business to be done and business to be won.

I wish you happy and prosperous selling in 2009.