Diana Barden, Director, writes:
As we prepared our free webinar for Cambridge Network members yesterday, I was reminded of the lessons contained within a book that was recommended to me recently, ‘The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea’ by Bob Burg and John David Mann. Known as a dedicated ‘go-getter’ salesman, our hero, Joe, faces the salesman’s ultimate humiliation, missing his quarterly sales target and with it a sizeable proportion of his income. In desperation he seeks the counsel of a highly recommended business guru.
As we might expect from the title, the advice Joe receives is not quite what he was expecting. He goes looking for a rabbit out of the hat or the silver bullet closing technique that will ensure he claws his sales target back from the jaws of failure; instead he learns the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success that seem to have more to do with giving business away for free, rather than making sales ('seem to' being the operative word here).
The current climate, punctuated by intense ambiguity, fear and uncertainty, may not seem to be the obvious time to be hustling customers or unleashing your killer closing techniques (of course there’s never a right time for these practices). And yet if you have something of real value, that you truly believe can improve the lives and businesses of your loyal and trusted clients, why would you withhold it from them now - of all times? Surely the only reason for withholding something of real benefit would be either: a) you hate your clients and have no desire to be of service to them or b) you have no faith in the product or service you sell.
If either of these is true, please stop reading now and close your business immediately!
Back to the book, the first Law of Stratospheric Success is this:
The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
Please read that sentence again. The Law of Value is focused on providing such an immense, value-based experience from the very start, that your customers genuinely feel they've received much more in value than they've paid for, which leads to a relationship of trust and a healthy profit in return.
My good friend Peter Thomson, international bestselling author, consultant and business coach, says ‘the income you receive is the silent applause for a job well done’. In other words, focus first and foremost on the job of adding real value to your clients.
My question to you is this:
How well do you know your key clients; I mean really know them?
How many times have you checked in with them since they’ve been working from home, dealing with furloughing their staff, shoring up their business, handling IT gremlins or staff anxiety issues? What is the biggest headache they’re currently facing? If you could take one problem off their desk, how could that make a difference to their day?
If you’d like to listen in to the webinar we hosted yesterday, entitled ‘Dos and Don’ts of Key Account Management when Working Remotely’ please click here>>>
We sincerely hope we can add some value and make a difference to your day.
Image Credit: Photo by Perry Grone on Unsplash