Your sales training programs tell you the customer comes first. You establish a trusting relationship and become their go-to resource for all things business.
How do you show your customers how important they are to you? Do you love on them? Ever?
Sure, you send them a holiday gift to show them how much they mean to you. You provide them with information to reinforce your own acumen so they don’t forget how much you mean to them.
How much do your customers really mean to you? Do you love them? Or are they a necessary part of doing business? After all, no customers, no commissions.
If you make it your business to do business with A-List customers, you work with and for folks who bring out the best in you. You, in turn, bring out the best in them. You do your best work on behalf of each other.
You collaborate.
While you concentrate on keeping yourself top of mind, how many of your A-List customers are top of mind for you? Do you dote on them? Do you think about them even when it’s not time to service their account?
A-List Customers can become a sounding board for your own business expertise. You want them to call you up and ask “what do you think?” That question indicates trust and respect.
How many of your A-List customers can you ask that same question: “Hey, I wanted to run something by you and take your pulse on what you think?”
Even if your question has absolutely nothing about you, your products and services, or their business.
I maintain relationships with a number of A-List customers, past and current. They serve as my Expert Panel. We chat from time to time and send each other articles we’ve read. We are each other’s business pulse. We vet our perspectives on certain topics. We corroborate – or not – each other’s perspective on industry verticals, markets, the economy, values, ethics.
We love on each other because we have grown to trust and respect each other’s opinions and perspectives.
We don’t send each other holiday gifts. We are each other’s gift to each other. We are people who have met each other during the course of doing business together, whose relationship endures beyond any company’s products and services.
Do you have any A-List Customers like that?
As business people, we are so focused on serving our customers that we overlook how they can serve us. It’s not just a matter of asking them for a referral. Paying forward and serving each other eventually becomes a meeting of the minds.
That’s what trusting and respectful business relationships morph into over time. It’s a two-way customer love fest.
Who are the A-List Customers who are beloved and trusted colleagues for you?
Babette N. Ten Haken, Founder & President of Sales Aerobics for Engineers, LLC, catalyzes revenue-producing business transition, startup growth and professional development. Download her newest White Paper at her Free Resources Page including her White Paper on Selling to Technical Decision Makers.
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