By Jill Rowley, Growth Strategist & Startup Advisor
This blog is brought to you by Salesforce’s Trailblazing Women Community. A community for women in business across industries developed to help women – and allies – learn more about paving the path to equality through diversity and inclusion programs in the workplace, mapping out success paths and career journeys, and building a personal brand.
Do your customers know that you have their best interests in mind? Are you empathetic and helpful? Do they consider you a trusted advisor at the very least—or maybe even a friend? Now, more than ever, the answers need to be a 100 percent yes.
Personal connections are crucial to navigating sales during today’s business and social climate. Let’s take a look at a few ways you can either begin nurturing your customer connections or make them even deeper.
Take a Look at Your Own Social Profile
Whether a buyer is researching you for the first time or you have worked with a customer for years, your social profile must match both your business acumen and personality.
Look at your LinkedIn profile through the lens of your customer. What would they want to see? No-one wants to see a “quota crusher.” Detail how you work with people, create value, and solve problems. This first impression with a buyer can begin to seed trust. At the same time, current or long-time customers will continue to learn more about you and see the continued commitment to your sales relationships and success.
Stay Social
In the social realm, we can’t look at our customers and contacts as potential “closed deals.” Rather, it’s all about making the connections and having the conversations with them consistently—not just when it’s time to commit to a deal.
A deeper level of social engagement means you need to always be connecting. This is a two-pronged approach by both making and keeping connections. Create a habit and embed the social and digital into your daily routine.
And remember…when you click the button to send a connection request, it isn’t about you. It’s about the person you are connecting with. Your network isn’t just an exercise in growth. Be sure to take the time to build and maintain authentic conversations and relationships.
Have Authentic Conversations
So what does an authentic conversation sound like? Speaking the language of your buyers is essential. Frame things in terms of what they care about and how they make decisions. This business acumen is really important.
For any individual, you need to know how they fit into the rest of the organization. What are their company initiatives and what is that company going through from an industry perspective? What are their own challenges? The ability to discuss all of this and your potential solutions—or simply helpful commentary—will build the trust that you have their best interest in mind.
Create Change and See Success
Every salesperson, no matter what you’re selling, is selling change. Are you effective at selling change? The best salespeople know more about their customers, they do more for their customers, and they care more about their customers. And they help guide them through that change.
Great salespeople know what makes customers successful, and they care about their customers’ success. Of course, that also translates to sales success. It can only happen through indelible relationships with each customer.
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