What is Relationship Selling? [REPOST]

           Today in the capital equipment and machinery market, business volume is growing and so are the  targets. But, you know that you have a plum  order from the "nice customer is all yours”.  Then one day, you go to your customer one fine morning, after several weeks, and ask him  about “my order” 
[ look at the arrogance] .And he says  “Oh that order, it went to the competition Ltd”.." I thought that you weren't interested and my boss was asking about it" . Your card castles collapse as you realize  that the order is lost forever-the one high value order on which your target was built up on...sounds familiar? 

Later on, after you finish berating your juniors and your boss stops berating you; you realize that you never had a relationship with the customer at all. This is an example of what-not-to- do in relationship selling. Do not take anyone for granted! In our line (high value engineering equipment selling) it makes you redundant and in our race (homo-sapiens)it leads to your extinction

Say, you are looking over 20 accounts, do an accounts versus sales analysis. You will find that at the most 5 or 6 account for 70% to 75% of your sale. You try to find out how many visits you made this year in 7 months, and it so turns out that you made only 1 visit, because you thought that would buy only from you. In addition, you tried to sell to the 15 customers who give you maximum 25% of the sales. What foolishness! What audacity! You took your customer for granted and that is never done!

In relationship selling, you make a relation with the customer’s key man. He may not be the person who signs the order but it is his decision, all the way. Develop a professional relationship with him. Tell the truth to him and no bullshit please. Tell him that you want the order but you also want to have a seller-buyer relation with him, so that it’s not one way traffic.

You try to help him in whatever way possible. You offer suggestions, which can help the customer increase his productivity. At first, the customer may be suspicious but later he will realize that you are sincere and honest. He will trust you although he may not trust your product. If that happens, you have to hard sell him (or her) and you should be able to do what you promise. Visit him once a week-fortnight.  This gentleman or lady then will be your friend come hell or high water. It’s you he will trust and your word will be the last word on the subject. You are your customer's default Purchase Manager.

Build up your relationships today, all in your major revenue-earning customers, and you will not regret it no matter which company you represent, in the future. If you have a good product, the customer will buy it just because you are selling it. Hard to believe, but this is true folks. I have done it myself. There are exceptions to every rule. If you are selling swords to Atilla-the –Hun, then maybe it will not be wise to have a close relationship.

With price becoming so competitive and quality being measured in microns, the day is not far away when your relation will count. Build win-win relationships with your customers, and not only will you get the business, but you will also gain a friend. This is the magic of relationship selling.

I know a gentleman (very senior) who is now in IOCL Gujarat Refinery. We still keep in touch. And I know that if I go to him with a proposal, he will consider it, because he will be sure that what I propose is a win-win thing.

This post is so important that it doesn't matter how many times I repeat it.

Taking your leave for now,

Your friendly neighborhood blogger
Bilbo

The Mechanics of Creativity

THE MECHANICS OF CREATIVITY

WE ALL KNOW WHAT CREATIVITY IS BUT HOW TO BRING IT OUT?

 PRESENTING CREATIVITY-AT-WILL

The Creativity theory

  Hi friends.

This is your friendly neghbourhood blogger again and this time we will tackle the mechanics of creativity. In this post we will start from where we left off.

Last time,we discussed creativity in general  and concluded that creativity is nothing but looking at things from a different perspective.Now, so many different things happen in our range of vision that the brain employs a filtering system so that we see only what will interest us. The other things also happen but those files go to the recycle bin of our mind and are then eliminated altogether. Maybe, some are retained as temporary cookies which will explan subconscious and conscious vision,but that is besides the subject of discussion.


The Gorilla in the basketball court

 I read about this a long time back and I may not be 100% accurate but its good enough for the purpose. In a study of cognition, a group of volunteers are taken to a basketball court where the opposing teams are in white and black. The volunteers are told to count the number of passes the team in white make. The whistle blows and soon a high intensity passing game starts and lasts for about 1 to 2 minutes. In the middle a man in a gorilla suit comes up, beats his chest, and then walks away. When the time runs out, the volunteers are asked about the number of passes and they give the answers. They are then asked about the gorilla and nobody recalls seeing a gorilla.

 If you want to check it out for yourself, there are plenty of videos posted on youtube.com by colleges and educators.You can easily get a lot of links from google. However, most people find that it doesn't work as well as described, because they are already watching out for the gorilla,which is not supposed to be the way its done. You already know about the gorilla which you are not supposed to know. Therefore, I am linking another video which shows us the same thing, allbeit, in a different scenario alltogether.Check it out by clicking HERE.

How does creativity work

We have become so accustomed to thinking in the same old way like “Event A will lead to B and B will lead to C”, i.e. in a cause and effect way that starting to look from a different perspective is difficult. Let us now bring Edward De Bono, into the picture the man who first coined the term “Lateral Thinking”  and who is considered as the leading intellectual authority on the subject of creative thinking. Dr. De Bono has written a long list of books on the subject of creative thinking starting from 1969 and has more than 35 years of experience in this field.   

Creativity and a Sense of Humor

In his book “Serious Creativity” Dr. De Bono, describes the humor model of lateral or creative thinking. Dr. Bono argues that in normal cases, our thinking process moves in the conventional straight line of cause and effect, as shown in the figure below. Going along this main route of thought, one  comes across various sidetracks, following some of which and then reversing direction, we can come back to the originating point i.e. we can think creatively and maybe, find new answers to existing problem, or in other words, exercise innovation. However, like the gorilla, we never see them, as we mentally block these sidetracks and go straight and straight on, in the usual and common way. We therefore need a way to make these blocks appear. Dr.Bono calls these ‘provocations’ i.e. events which provokes us to leave the main track and enter the sidetrack, naming them 'po'.

HUMOUR AND CREATIVITY:  A NATURAL PO

USING CREATIVITY TO BOOST YOUR SALES

 Two words which have been ruthlessly abused in the last ten to fifteen years are 'CREATIVITY' and "INNOVATION". If you are somewhat sceptical of that ststement, then listen to this. I was just going through the paper a few days back when I came to this line in an obituary I was just glancing through of an old codger who died of old age in his nineties. And there was the sentence" Mr So.-and-so did many innovative things in his lifetime. Really?? 

"Familiarity breeds Contempt" and today we are so familiar with the I-word and to a lesser extent the C-word, that they don't mean anything. The tragedy about this is the boy who is eaten up..
You: Which boy?
Me: You know the one who used to shout 'Wolf"
You. Was he eaten up?
Me:  Aaaah! He wasn't . I am just indulging in some creative innovation.
You go : Waaah! How do you do that? ....

That is the story of Innovation and Creativity, folks!. We have become so familiar with it today that we won't recognize the real I and C, even if they dance the "Lungi dance" in front of us stark naked. We will tackle the I-word in another post and in this post, we will just tackle with creativity.

Just what is Creativity

Creativity is " the ability to look at inputs from a different perspective /viewing angle so that the resultant output makes sense or enhances value"
Creativity is not jumping to conclusions.

Some people confuse creativity with " Creative Writing" , a phrase much bandied around these days, which is not correct. Creative writing is connected to the writer and the writer's work. Perhaps if I give an example of creativity, it will be more clear to you, dear reader, just what I am trying to tell you.

Let us imagine a hypothetical situation where a person travelling along a road comes to a fork on the road. One arm goes to the right and the other to the left. He is now at a loss as to which way to go. Actually both the fork arms first diverge and then converge again to form the road again. But our hero dosen't know this. He is flummoxed and unable to continue. But after a couple of hours,a light bulb shines on the top of his head.  Why don't I look at my road  from a higher elevation, he thinks?  He climbs a tree (growing conveniently nearby) and from the very top sees that the roads meet again . He climbs down and continues on his way, right or left now makes no difference.This is creativity

We must all have experienced the phenomenon that something written by you which looks perfect, appears flawed when you look at it the next morning. This is Creativity as I understand it and the credit for my comrehension (only if correct-if flawed, its mine) must go to Dr. Edward DeBono and his books.

Creativity and Selling

But as you may be wondering by now, how can creativity help in selling. Simple ! Take nothing for granted and try thinking of a tough problem in different ways. If you are just not able to sell