Focus on Your Customers' Needs - Stay Relevant!!

So, here we are managing (or is it enduring?) another week of our new life style.
As many of you have experienced, it's difficult to connect with new prospects and gain engagement as a new supplier or solution partner. So during this time of unusual circumstances, let's look at what we can do as sales professionals to remain successful when things return to 'normal'.
It's a great time to create a business plan for your specific industry and book of business. Think about the verticals that you need to penetrate along with what marketing tools will help you engage. Make a list of targets and develop a game plan for each with definitive action items. Social media, emails, etc. can be written and pushed out now so you can keep your brand fresh and top of mind. Plug in dates about other selling strategies to deploy when we know more about the time line of the end of our new dynamic.
You now have time to write case studies and white papers and research leads. You can develop new ways to help your clients with their customer initiatives to help them keep their client base.
You have time to write emails to clients to offer your help with their needs and objectives. And you definitely have time to get onto a new webinar and see what's new!!

We need to be super creative to build ideas to be an extension of our customers' customers!

• Your Plan: Review your current sales plan. Make sure it aligns with the updated company sales strategy. Adjust where required, and then get after it. And remember, spend most of your time LEARNING. The market has likely changed (on both a collective and individual client basis), so your consultative sales interviews should include a massive component of market research.
• Client account review: Start with your existing customers. Seek to understand. Learn about each of their concerns. Is there anything you might do to help? Many will openly embrace support in deciding how to navigate in these uncertain times. Be their go-to trusted advisor.
• Don't wait for the phone to ring: Many people will become paralyzed during these times. Personally contact as many prospects and clients as possible. Don't feel like you need to solve anything or propose solutions. It is OK to not have all the answers, but if you can help your clients develop better questions or make better decisions, you will add a lot of value. They will remember you for it (and you will learn a lot about the market and see new potential opportunities).
• Care, Listen, Understand: What concerns your clients and prospects? Don't listen with intent to sell. Listen with the intent to Learn. Keep your filters off. This is no time to be pushy or convincing. Be patient. If you are, I promise your consultations and empathy will produce plenty of new opportunities.
• Segment Markets: Has the New Normal created any major areas of concern for your prospects and customers? Now is the best time to contact all of your existing customers to show them how much you care, to learn what THEY are doing to weather the storm, and to evaluate whether or not there is anything you might do to help.
• Client account review: Start with your existing customers. Seek to understand. Learn about each of their concerns. Is there anything you might do to help? Many will openly embrace support in deciding how to navigate in these uncertain times. Be their go-to trusted advisor.
• Persistence: Never give up. Understand that opportunities always abound during uncertain times, but that most people simply do not recognize them.

Never forget, the psychology of buyers, and principles of effective selling and communication apply during good times and bad. But during very uncertain times, superior salespeople and teams understand how to be even more valuable to their clients and their companies by unearthing new opportunities and by helping their prospects see new ways to approach an otherwise scary environment. By being persistent, talking less, and learning more, they completely separate themselves from the pack.

Helping a client protect and improve their own business is always a much greater differentiator than offering a product or service itself. Salespeople that approach conversations in this manner will always get preferential treatment when the time comes for a purchase decision.

• Here are some ideas on how to connect and sell differently:
• Phone call
• Mail promo product
• Use LinkedIn
• Schedule a Video chat
• Send a Demo for one of your products/solutions
• Get on a Conference call
• Email a White paper or series of them
• Put a Coffee card in the mail
• Electronically send a gift card
• Drop off a gift (if appropriate)

If you would like to schedule a call to brainstorm or see how I can be for help, please email me leslie@groeneconsulting.com. Looking forward to connecting and keeping our clients top of mind so we can still be top of mind when the dust settles!!

Sales Ready! 2020

Virtual Conference Event | May 4-8, 2020 | 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, Daily
$99 PIA Members | $149 Non-members

How to Keep Customers and Prospects Engaged
Leslie Groene, President, Groene Consulting

Customer engagement is imperative, and in order for it be effective, it must be approached from the customer's perspective. What's in it for them? Every day you're not engaged with your prospect is another day that your competitors can gain traction with building the relationship with these prospects or swoop in and take away your opportunity. As a salesperson, you need to come up with creative ways to continue the conversation and keep the relationships alive to stay top of mind. In this presentation, you'll learn 10 creative techniques to keep both customers and prospects continually engaged to win more business.

More information and to sign up!