4 minute read
Almost everyone that has been in sales or is now in the sales and marketing environment of restoration and roofing, knows RELATIONSHIPS are vital to your success. For me, it’s very frustrating that most salespeople (restoration marketers) simply don’t know the right way to begin and maintain a client relationship.
NOT MAKING FRIENDS
I hear on almost a monthly basis, marketers saying “I try to create as many friends as possible” as a key part of their marketing efforts. Reality says: no insurance agent, no plumber, no client, is actively looking for or wants new friends. Yes, a friendship can develop, but rarely do your clients go to the office saying to themselves “I sure hope I make a friend today!”
However, each prospect and client you do engage expects you to deliver several key traits:
- Credibility
- Believability
- Sincerity
- Trust
- Empathy
As a marketer, if you fail at these five critical behaviors, you will ultimately fail in your marketing role!
CRITICAL
The first four in the list above all overlap. They are each slightly different, but all are essential to the client feeling like they want to do business with you – all other things being equal. It’s been said thousands of times: no credibility – no sale. The last bullet point – empathy – means you know about their business. You know their pains and headaches. Your client must believe you can, do, and have “walked in their shoes.”
ABOUT THEM
No prospect wants to engage a marketer that makes the presentation and discussion about them (the marketer). I’ve had hundreds (probably thousands) of salespeople, marketers, and wanna-be’s all tell me the client claims they don’t know what the marketers’ company actually does in their business. Marketers easily fall into this trap – doing like every other marketer out there – and they start gushing crap out of their mouths about their Fire-Water-Smoke-Mold services.
CLIENTS DON’T CARE
The truth is, they say they don’t know what you do, because you are acting like every other salesperson. Your prospect knows it, hears it, and understands that if they simply let you tell them about your services… then you will go away. Essentially, (without realizing it), they bait you into acting and sounding like every other marketer before you!
Prospects and clients ONLY care about themselves, their business, and their industry. From my experience, hundreds of marketers struggle greatly to grasp and solve this difficulty of taking about ‘fire-water-smoke-mold’ services, completely ignoring what matters the most to the client.
MOST SUCCESSFUL
The salespeople I coach are taught early on that they must make their elevator speech, their conversation, and their leave-behind materials, ALL ABOUT THE CLIENT.
Those that grasp and implement this strategy go on to become ultra-high sales performers. They get more strong relationships, more referrals, and far better earnings than their counterparts. Embrace sales coaching, along with self-learning!
By Dick Wagner, Co-Founder The CREST Network, LLC
Nationally recognized coach, consultant, trainer, and speaker
Creator of the renowned PREP™ pre-disaster program
Owner of AskDickWagner.com BLOG
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