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Ed Albertson
Vice President - National Accounts, Carew International, Inc.

Does Anyone Really C.A.R.E.? 4 Ways to Strengthen Business Relationships in the 21st Century

Post #53 - 4/16/2010

“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

Dr. John Maxwell
(A Business Week best-selling author, Maxwell has written three books that have sold more than a million copies: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You, and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.)

Business relationships have dramatically changed with the introduction of 24-7 information, global competition and technology that allows rapid innovation and duplication. Combined, these forces all reduce the differentiation of products and services even as solutions become increasingly interconnected and complicated. Layered atop those factors is the heightened sense of risk-aversion in the business world. Add in the churn of functions and roles and suddenly business relationships don’t “feel” the same way they used to. It’s almost as if those relationships have lost their value for both the buyer and the seller. The truth is, relationships are as important as ever, but the dynamics of what makes them valuable have changed.

More than ever, our customers need to know we really care about them, their companies and the future of both. It’s up to us as sales professionals to take the lead with developing our business relationships and we can best do that if we continually and consistently are:

C  onfirming what we both (customer and seller) know about each other. Doing so limits those false assumptions we can easily make when we lack the facts about each other and from which we can build a solid business relationship. Typically, this would take place at the beginning of the business relationship, but with time comes change and it could be very beneficial to reconfirm what we think we know, as well.

A  sking for information we don’t know about customer.  Imagine how flattering it is to our customers for us to demonstrate our sincere interest in them, their business, their products and services, their competition and their customers! Relevant questions do just that and have the effect of paving the way for the possible solutions we might offer.

R  evealing what our customer might like to know about us. Once we’ve established an understanding of our customer’s environment, we can begin to consider what appropriate solutions we have that might be of interest to our customers. Targeting solutions to customer needs isn’t new, but effectively doing so is and requires our understanding of more than simple needs. We need to be able to help customers “see around the corner” based upon our expertise, providing a knowledge resource that is very differentiating.

E  xpanding the potential benefits available to both of us and our companies. As we learn more about our customers and they learn more about us, we both benefit from an expanded business relationship that holds far greater potential than originally conceived by either of us. As the relationship grows, so does opportunity for both buyer and seller, and that interdependence is a more productive state for both, as well.

Though business is in a constant state of change, the need for customers to know their sales professionals understand the environment occupied by the customer remains constant and our success depends upon our ability to show we really CARE.

 

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