Making your customers successful

Making your customers successful 

If you want to build a growth company, you must be customer focused. And that means waking up every day and asking, 

“What can I do to make my customers successful?”

Your customer’s success is your success, so it is in your best interest to make your customer as successful as possible. That doesn’t mean giving away your products and services. It does mean enabling your customer to tap the full potential of what you’re selling and to assist your customer even when that assistance doesn’t directly boost sales.

Take the time to get to know their business, their vision, their strategies for growth, their target customers, and their pain points. Talk with them and share your ideas for helping them be more successful.

You may be called on to offer your customer some free advice, refer them to other companies for products and services you don’t sell, or even do a little head-hunting for them to steer them in the direction of the most qualified personnel in your area.

Become your own customer, as much as possible. Try to buy the same product or one that’s similar to what you sell from another salesperson to discover insights from your customer’s point of view. (You don’t actually have to buy it.)

As an entrepreneurial salesperson, always think one step ahead. This means considering your customer’s customer. The single most important contribution you can make to your customer’s success is contributing to the success of your customer’s customer.

In many cases, this is primarily the responsibility of your company’s CEO or product development division, but because you probably have more direct contact with customers, you may need to carry the message back to your company. If you’re selling to a business that sells your product to consumers, keep that consumer, the end user, in mind.

But above all: be fair, be honest, do what you say you’re going to do, and deliver on time and within budget. 

Christiaan Janssens
Executive Coach

CRO @ Spa Akwa Belgium