Personal Approach Can Build Sales
In today’s competitive, complex world, good marketing entails more than just making a profitable sale.
Q. I own a business that sells big-ticket items to other businesses. Any ideas as to how I can distinguish myself from the rest of the pack?
A. The key to what you seek lies in “relationship marketing,” a technique that will help you attract and keep sophisticated, demanding customers in today’s hotly competitive business-to-business marketplace.
Since all business success begins with the “top line” on the income statement, it’s important to build strong, enduring sales connections with the owners and principals in the business firms that constitute your primary market. Since you are probably going toe-to-toe with some big competitors, you’ll be greatly advantaged if you individualize and personalize your approaches to these decision-makers.
As you know, a successful marketing program requires strong strategies for “product, promotion, price and place.” But, perhaps most importantly, it needs a creative, aggressive and patient salesperson who is a combination hunter, teacher, friend, closer and servicer. High-value sales transactions require marketers who have in-depth customer knowledge and the capacity to guide a decision-maker to a satisfactory close over a protracted sales cycle.
Needless to say, over the years many successful marketing techniques have been developed and deployed to enhance sales professionals’ effectiveness. It’s a good bet that there have been more books published on “successful selling” than on any other business topic. A very helpful one is “Spin Selling,” in which Neil Rackham advocates a process of “relationship marketing.” His approach is reinforced in another useful marketing textbook, “Marketing: Connecting with Customers.” In it, Professors Gilbert Harrel and Greg Frazier define relationship marketing as “the development of relational exchanges … interactive, ongoing, two-way connections among customers … and other parties for mutual benefit.” The characteristics underlined in this definition are critical, and distinguish this form of marketing from the more commonplace “transactional marketing” that focuses on interaction for a one-time transfer of value.
While transactional marketing involves a single event that is “pushed” over a short time frame from the vendor side of the exchange, relationship marketing requires two-way interaction over a much longer period of time. It is concerned with creating an enduring connection that creates value for both parties. The establishment and maintenance of such a “bridge for exchange” requires a great deal of mutual understanding, bred of a long history of meaningful communication.
A link of this nature is extremely important today, given the growing complexity of product and service utilities and the rapid pace of change in our marketplaces. More and more, vendors have to depend on customer loyalty, and customers must rely on trust in their vendors. But this kind of affiliation thrives only if there is a personal bond that is the result of familiarity and long-term, consistent favorable experience.