“At this moment you mean everything”
Come On Eileen – Dexys Midnight Runners
At the beginning of my sales career, the thing that was actually holding me back was my own success!
Now that sounds a bit like I’m blowing my own trumpet – but my ability to get new customers genuinely threatened to jeopardise the relationship I had with my existing clients.
You see I loved the thrill of bringing in new business.
I loved the internal recognition, the memos from the hierarchy, that personal sense of achievement and the “getting one over” on the competition.
If you threw the new business stick into the long grass of the sales jungle, I’d run after it and emerge a short time later – wagging my tail, looking up at you with excited eyes that screamed “throw it again, throw it further, throw it again!”
Trouble was, my role changed to Account Manager quite early on in my career.
I got promotion after promotion – and yet my methods, tactics and viewpoints never changed, never evolved.
During one appraisal, my sales manager shared a couple of home truths.
He had seen through all the flag waving and triumphalism, he knew that there were existing customers being ignored.
He showed me that due to my portfolio growing at such a rate, the hard won business dropping out of the bottom was being disguised by what was being fed into the top.
I’m told that, as an average, 68% of customers are lost due to indifference.
They’re either neglected for so long or they feel so worthless in the eyes of their account manager that they shuffle off to find someone who can promise them a little bit of real love.
And who can blame them?
The generic sales professional, swanning in with shiny shoes and a perfectly pressed shirt, promising to love them forever, that at this moment – they mean everything.
To get a new customer costs your company a great deal of money.
Have you ever worked out – or even thought about – how much that is?
Prospect numbers are not infinite – trees don’t grow all the way to the sun – everything stops somewhere.
One day you will either run out of prospects or change jobs – either way you’ll probably have to see some of them again during your career.
Keeping your customers happy, might just help you to keep them – period!
Account Management and National Account Management isn’t simply “the same job with bigger numbers” – it’s about effective, professional relationship management.
How many times have we taken over a set of prospects or accounts and been told that “the last person never looked after us!”
Make a promise to never end up being THAT last person!
Here’s a question for you to think about.
If you were made redundant tomorrow and the only sales job available was with a customer – would you get the job?
A quick Woody Allen quote to finish us off;
“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we’ve got on our hands is a dead shark.”
Until next time
Chris
PS – My new book The Extremely Successful Salesman’s Club is getting rave reviews – including one from Best Selling Author Lee B Salz – if you click on the book title above you can download the first 4 chapters for free
New Sales and Customer Service Training testimonial video HERE – find out what our customers think
New Sales Training & Customer Service Case Studies HERE
This year, I want to help you and your sales team become more successful than they’ve ever been before – call my office now on 0844 293 9777 or request a call back by going to our Contact Page HERE.
You and I can work out a sales training programme that suits your requirements perfectly – foundation level sales training, field sales training, account management training, selling value over price, FMCG sales training, customer service training, whatever it might be – but it’s a big old world out there and if you don’t take two minutes to invite me over, I may never know you need me.
We create bespoke sales training days from as little as £228 per person, so give my office a call today and we can get a date in the diary to start working on tailoring something just for you.
Chris Murray
0844 293 9777
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