Sales Professionals Are Real, Relatable & Relevant With Their Clients... Are You?

"There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up."

John Andres Holmes

When it comes to your taking care of your clients, Are You Building Relationships Or Burning Bridges? 

Are you focused on building authentic and credible relationships with your clients?

You can be credible, reliable and loving but if it’s painfully obvious you only have your own interests at heart people will see through your charade. They will call you out for what you are, an empty suit.

How many believe relationships matter? Of course they do. Meaningful and credible relationships matter even more in business today.

Here's the deal... I'm keeping it real folks, I'm massively concerned with the weak relational skill set that many have in sales.

Do you have good relationships with your clients or great relationships?

How many of you walk around or should I say strut around saying, "My clients love me" "I have rock solid relationships with my clients" And then you get the dreaded call. We know the call. 

CREDIBLE RELATIONSHIPS

Trust. You can't form a credible and healthy relationship without it. Trust is the driving catalyst and this is at the center of establishing credible relationships.

Your ability to build trust and credibility is mission critical to maintaining healthy relationships. Lack of credibility and how believable you are, will cause your clients to withhold trust. Lack of trust in a business relationship costs you your clients and diminishes your ability to consistently succeed in sales.

Credibility = Trust + Expertise + Authenticity

Building and keeping credible relationships is not simple and straightforward. You must authentically invest in order to build a credible relationship. This means it takes careful planning, consistency, discipline and heart to nurture relationships in order to become an integral part of your clients' lives.

You simply can't do this with a monthly call, a quarterly visit, a semi-annual visit or the classics... "I'm checking in with you" or "Just touching base."

Care + Compassion = Connection

If you fail to continually enhance the client experience, don't be surprised if they look elsewhere for new experiences.

MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS MATTER

Heartfelt sales professionals build meaningful relationships with their clients. They get it! To build meaningful relationships, they understand as humans we crave and value relationships.

Credibility and true meaning provides:

• Connectivity (knowing we're in this together)
• Support (knowing we're helping each other)
• Validation (knowing we feel the same way)

Relationships are a part of human nature. It's wired in our DNA.

"The more you give, ultimately the more you receive."

Are you personally engaging with your clients?

Are you authentically investing in building meaningful relationships?

THE CLIENT LITMUS TEST

Sales professionals build rock solid and massively credible relationships layers deep inside their client base.

They bring their heart to their clients. They get the people aspect. The more they know the more they grow with your clients.

REAL

In a business world full of empty suits and sales facades, being real and transparent with your clients is completely nonnegotiable. I believe without this one can be labeled a commodity.

I sincerely believe transparency and being real:

• Creates the foundational layers of trust
• Creates a strong positive relationship where you can build loyalty

Without loyalty, you're a commodity

Transparency and being real is intentionally baring your soul to your clients by showing the true version of yourself. Many in sales have lost their identity do to fear of rejection, lack of self-confidence, a broken sales heart, or lack of fulfillment.

Being real, being genuine, being authentic... isn't this what your clients crave? Authentic sales professionals know who they are. They don’t masquerade around as someone they’re not. They're willing to let down their guard and let their clients see it.

What can you implement to become more transparent and real?

RELATABLE

Connecting with your clients is vital. You must make them feel like you really care and this means stop looking at them through your dollar signed glasses.

When was the last time you shared with one of your clients how you really felt?

We as human beings want to be heard, we want to know that we matter and we just want to be loved (or even just liked). When we feel accepted we perform better, we become a bit more relaxed and we don't come across as being insecure.

Can you relate?

I believe being relatable in sales will allow you to stand out from the competition. I believe your clients are waiting for you to show them who you really are and to share your story.

When you’re relatable, it’s easy to spark a conversation.

When you're having conversations, be present and be there. Sales professionals make their clients feel like they're the only thing that matters. They speak from their heart. So many can smell sincerity the minute you open your mouth but smell the odors of commission breath just as fast.

When you start communicating with authenticity you'll find that the trust and relatability factors soar.

Show your human side and your real story, you'll be surprised at how well you may connect.

What can you do to become more relatable?

RELEVANT

Relevancy is not an option

Many of you in sales wrap yourself up with self-delusional thoughts regarding how much your clients love you. Walk in their shoes, think about the pressures they're under. Imagine what they’re feeling right now. Empathize with them. Help them!

Now ask yourself... just how relevant am I right now to my clients?

In this highly competitive digitally driven business environment, it is mission critical to stay relevant, competitive, marketable and yes, desirable. You MUST make sure that you’re continuously improving and evaluating yourself regularly.

"Truth is in the eye of the beholder"

Sales professionals become relevant and differentiate themselves by leading with insight.

I encourage you to look in the mirror and ask yourself...

• Am I going the extra distance for my clients?
• Am I serving others?
• Am I serving the cause?
• Am I developing a deep, genuine concern for my clients?

What are you going to do to become RELEVANT? Now think about this through your client's eyes. This may hurt if you're honest with yourself.

So, here's the question again... Do you have good relationships or great relationships? 

SHOW YOU CARE

"If you truly care about your clients, then they’ll care about you"

In an environment that is becoming increasingly competitive, you must focus on building meaningful relationships with your clients.

• You must become genuinely interested in their business
• You must be on the lookout to help them do better business
• You must connect with meaning rather than just contacting them to sell them something or waiting for them to contact you.

Think of the following relationship equation with each and every one of your clients.

Engage + Excite/Conversation x Caring = Meaningful relationship

Meaningful relationships do matter! Discover the power of relational selling at Selling From the Heart.

I understand, I get where you all are coming from. Every day, I walk in your shoes. I am fully committed to helping your sales team integrate social aspects and modern strategies into your current sales process to grow new business. I want you to get results. This is why I am passionate about doing this the right way, the genuine way, the authentic way! It's about understanding value before visibility.

Selling From the Heart is making a difference! I poured my heart into every page of this book and I think you're going to love it. You can find it on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. You can click on the book image below and this will take you to Amazon.

You can find more material inside Selling From The Heart.

In a world full of empty suits, I'm passionate about helping sales reps succeed by getting valuable before they get visible. I help sales teams understand the true value they bring to the market. 

I appreciate getting the opportunity to share my stories. Integrating the use of social and sharing my story on LinkedIn was my “game-changer” in the highly competitive office technology world. With great pride I transform, challenge, coach and inspire sales teams to grow new business by helping them share their story and how they communicate it out by integrating the use of social inside the sales process. You can follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter and on my podcast by clicking on Selling from the Heart.