Building Relationships

This should serve as proof enough that companies should not merely look at new sales but also at building relationships with existing customers in order to build their business. If you show your current customers that you care as much for them as you do for your new or prospective customers, not only will they come back to purchase more but they will also be the first ones to speak about your product to others. As a result, you have turned your existing customers into repeat buyers as well as powerful spokespeople for your business.

There is just one simple principle in building relationships with your customers. Listen to them and understand their needs. Once you have earned their trust and understood what exactly they are looking for, you will be able to offer better solutions or better variations of your product. For example, your client may confide in you that the boss wants a product that works exactly like the competition but does not want to shell out the money for that. Knowing this will help you find solutions that work exactly as they had desired. This will not only help them but also strengthen your relationship.

Speak to any customer and they will tell you that their best experiences were with people who showed more interest in the needs of the business rather than just making a sale. These sales people would come in with an open mind, put absolutely no pressure on the client and be completely honest with them. Their friendly approach relieved many of the customer's anxieties and it was a pleasure to discuss business with them. Since they made an effort to understand their client's needs before they even met with them, they were able to offer tailor-made solutions at excellent prices. Further, their attitude assured customers that if they had any problems or emergency of any sort, it would be taken care of immediately. This kind of trust made clients turn down better priced offers from other vendors.

When you build a relationship, your client does not regard you as a seller - your business is now something that they can expect support from and they feel they can depend on you if they need something in the future. Therefore, the more attentive you are to their needs and to what will make life easier for them, the more you can expect them to come to you with repeat orders. Further, if you are selling a product in a highly cut-throat market, relationship selling will give you just that much more of an advantage over your competitors though you may be equal in all other things like pricing and features.

It is therefore very important that the relationship building starts even before any sale has taken place. After the sale, you need to maintain constant contact with the client and remain easily accessible so that you can keep building this relationship.