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.
