If we want to succeed in sales, we want to build a strong relationship with our buyers.  Having to run around and create a new buyer every single time is seriously hard work.  Yes we must hunt, but we also want to farm. However, nowever, nHoot all buyers are easy to deal with.  We might think they should change, so that they are easier to deal with. They should make it easier for us to sell them our solutions. Unfortunately, we can’t change others. We can only change how we think and behave. Doing so can in turn, have a positive impact on others. That’s the whole thinking behind Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People – it’s not about manipulation.  It is not about us waiting for them to change. It’s about changing ourselves first and how we approach buyers. 

If we approach buyers in the same way every time, we will always get the same counter reaction.  This is Newtonian physics which we learnt at High School, “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. In sales, if we change the angle of our approach to the buyer by just three degrees, then we will get a different counter reaction. 

The point is we have to make that decision to change those three degrees on our side first, rather than expecting the buyer to change themselves to suit how we like things.  There are some excellent, proven, time tested Human Relations Principles we can draw on to help us with this.

Human Relations Principles 1-3

1. Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.

How many times have you criticised someone and had them admit they were wrong and tell you that you are completely right?  It almost never happens because people rush to defend themselves and want to justify whatever it is they are doing.  If we do criticise them knowing this, then all we are doing is setting ourselves up to fail to change them and even worse, create bad feelings between us.  We might be tempted to criticize the buyers company for forcing us to have 120 day payment terms.  Or by suddenly changing the order at the last moment.  Or by leading us down the garden path and then buying from our competitor, because we were used to provided the compliance department with their required multiple bids.  We need to deal with such negative buyer actions in a different way.

2. Give honest, sincere appreciation.

This sounds so simple, except that we don’t do it.  It is not that we give fake or dishonest appreciation, because we don’t give any appreciation period.  We expect everyone to be doing what they should be doing, but we show no appreciation of that. Then we wonder why it is hard to get people to cooperate with us?  The consequence is that everyone is starved of appreciation. 

They are also quite sensitive to any attempts at flattery and will dismiss it as dishonest words, somehow trying to trick them into doing something they don’t want to do.  So, we have to identify something concrete and provable that they did and then praise that.  For example, with a buyer, “Suzuki san, I appreciated the fact you got back to me on time with the information I requested, it really helped me meet the deadline. Thank you for your cooperation”.  The praise is specific and true and Suzuki san is more likely to accept the praise as being honest.

3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

We all want lots of things. In fact, we spend almost 100% of our day focused on what we want.  The issue though is when we need the cooperation of others.  They are focusing on what they want too and are not interested in our needs or requirements. We need to switch our communication to focus on things which are also important to them. 

What does the buyer as an individual, not the company representative, want?  Do we know what that is and do we know it in detail? When we frame things in this way, they feel there is something positive for them and they are more motivated to agree to our ideas. 

How do you need to change your communication style and content, to get the type of buyer cooperation you need, where the other person thinks this is in their buyer interests too?

Which principles are you going to use with your buyer today?

You would think that if your business has survived Covid, then the pandemic will have cut a swathe through your competitors.  Therefore, we would all be granted a temporary reprieve from the usual rigorous competition for client business. Counterintuitively, there seems to be more and more competition for the same clients, so we need to differentiate ourselves very clearly.  What we absolutely don’t want is for the buyer to think they can just swap another company’s solution in to replace us, like a modular part in the modern car engine. 

We need our Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) to be crisp and sharp to make sure the buyer knows we are different and better than the competition.  We need to point out what we are offering, that they are not.  However with all of this focus on bare bones survival have we looked at our USPs lately?  Are they a bit dusty and the sheen gone off from lack of attention?

Some things to think about when crafting our Unique Selling Proposition is to look at things from the buyer’s perspective.  This seems completely obvious but often we are operating in our own little bubble and we see the world through the limited prism of our own value system.

It is no help talking about what we sell in our USP. That is tremendously interesting to us, but not as important as what is of interest to the buyer.  Do we really know what they are interested in now?  Have their interests shifted since Covid shook up the business world?  What are they trying to buy today?  What new problems do they need help solving?  In today’s commercial environment where do they need to receive more value? 

Let’s use Dale Carnegie as the example. We may think we sell sales training.  However, what company buyers want is to receive greater per head sales revenue outcomes from their salespeople.  In fact, we need to sell outcomes and our training services are the tool to achieve that.

Let’s see some examples of our USPs 

1. Dale Carnegie Training has been in operation since 1912.

We think that is terrific and important, but the client doesn’t care about that.  In Japan, in particular, what they do care about is risk reduction. We need to emphasise that our track record of 109 years provides the Japanese buyer with the sense that our company has a solid track record, so therefore, we are more trustworthy as a result.  “Nobody gets fired for buying IBM” was a fantastic ad tag line in the 1970s and this is the real USP for us not the 109 years.  If you have longevity as a business in Japan, what is your real USP in your case?

2. We teach 90% of the Fortune 500 companies.

Again, “so what” from the buyer’s point of view.  The essence of the USP is that these Fortune 500 companies are the richest and most powerful companies and they can choose whoever they want to provide training services.  The fact that they choose Dale Carnegie is an indication that the biggest organisations have done their due diligence and like what we do, so we are a safe choice.  Remember, nobody wants to be first to try something in Japan, so this precedent idea is a winner here. Can you marshal your biggest clients as proof that there is a safe precedent to buy from you? 

3. We have offices in 100 countries.

This is another “so what” potential reaction from clients.  We need to point out that because of our global network, we can deliver training wherever the client is located.  Further, we can do it in the language and cultural context of that society, ensuring the best reception of the training content.  Do you have global capacity, so that buyers can have a global one-stop shop solution when using you?  How are you framing your USP around this point?

4. Our trainers are required to complete 250 hours of train-the-trainer content before they can be certified by Dale Carnegie and be allowed to instruct.

The point is to mention that this whole process takes about a year and a half and only the most motivated and dedicated people are willing to put themselves through this rigorous process. This is why we can claim our trainers are the “best of the best”.  The hours are not the key – the selection process is the key.

What processes do you have in place to assure the client that the people serving them are extremely well selected and well trained.  You may be doing both right now, but not thinking to mention it to the client as a USP differentiator in the market.

The point of the USPs is to differentiate what we are doing from our competitors and give the client the comfort that they are making a wise decision in choosing us to provide the solution to their problems. Have your USPs changed since Covid started?  Are they polished, shiny and sparkling, ready to impress the buyer?  It is time to revisit and rework them as we move glacially toward a post-Covid business world.

At the center of everything we do is the customer relationship.  Additionally, like planets revolving around the sun, there are five stages of the sales cycle revolving around the customer relationship, which we must pass through in order to make the sale.  In a way, this is our roadmap for when we are talking to the buyer.  If we want to make a sale and get the re-order, we must control the sales conversation with the buyer, not the other way around. When we are talking to the buyer we are never stuck, because we know where we are in the cycle and what needs to come next. Let’s take a walk through the galaxy and visit each of these stages of the sales cycle.

1. This is all about forming a positive first impression. Remember the client doesn’t know us yet.  We may have met them at an event, through a referral, via a website lead or through a cold call. We need our credibility statement beautifully refined to explain who we are and why we can do a great job of serving the buyer. We need to ask some qualifying questions at this point to really understand if we can in fact serve the buyer or not. 

We need a plan for the conversation, so we have prepared an agenda statement. We invite the buyer to add any items they think necessary to get the right buy in, to progress the meeting using this agenda.

They don’t know us and this is an important point. We need to find out what they do know about us from their research or what they have heard in the market. Definitely we need to immediately correct any misperceptions or wrong information.

2. We are here to help them solve their problems, but like a medical doctor we need to understand the situation completely, before we start prescribing any solutions.  To do this we need to ask as series of questions.

What is their current situation?

Where do they want to be in the next few years?

What things do they need to change to get where they want to be?

If this is a successful project helping them with their solutions, what will it mean for them personally?

After hearing them out we need to tell them if we can in fact help them or not. If we can’t then we need to get moving and find someone we can help.  If we can help them, we give a quick summary of what we heard.  Then we add our declaration that we do in fact have the right solutions for their issues.

3. We take what they have told us and we build the solution.  Next, we have to take them through the solution, so that they know exactly how we can help them, how it works, what is involved, etc.  At this point we are confirming that our understanding of their issues is correct.  We need to provide the detail, the facts, features etc. 

Importantly we need to provide the benefits of the features we are describing – tell them how to apply this in their business.  We also must provide evidence of where this has worked before – we need to provide proof of what we are saying.  Finally we should check for understanding or any concerns at this point, by using a trial close to test the waters.

4. Now if we haven’t been clear enough in our solution explanation, questions will arise.  If we haven’t been persuasive enough, then concerns will arise.  We may even get strong pushback against our solution.  We need to know how to professionally handle any objections.

5. We have outlined the solution and dealt with any concerns, so now it is time to ask for the order. Before doing that, we need to paint a word picture that can conjure up in their mind scenes of success using our solution. We use one of our many techniques for softly asking for the order. 

Once we get agreement, then we have to flesh out the details of how the solution will be delivered.  We need to maintain contact with the client to make sure all is well after we have delivered the solution and see if they need any other help.  A very happy client is perfectly poised to refer us to others who could also make valuable use of our solution.

The five steps in the sales cycle are our roadmap and all we need to do is work our way through them.  Probably steps three to five will be at the second meeting.  Do you have a road map?  Do you have your credibility statement, agenda statement, qualifying questions?  Do you have the right strategy for dealing with objections and for gently asking for the order?  If you don’t, then “Japan Sales Mastery” will become a Sales Bible for you in Japan.

We all know that without trust there will be no sale and much worse than that, no ongoing sales.  So how do we build trust with our buyers? It is a critical salesperson facility, because research shows that 63% of buyers would rather buy from someone they completely trust, than from someone who gives them a better price.  Think about that – trust trumps price.  What is the cost of creating trust versus having to resort to discount pricing to get deals done?

Our mindset is the key. We have to be thinking “relationship” and “partnership” with the buyer, rather than a single transaction, a fleeting encounter, a “one and done”.  We always want the reorder, don’t we? Of course we do.  Because our thinking is “long term relationship”, our communication will also reflect this approach.  Once our communication changes, the buyer will relax and will be more open to building a long-term relationship.  Buyers are experts at sensing danger and duplicity.  They can smell a rat from a long way away and they are permanently on guard against being ripped off.  How happy they are to find a salesperson they can genuinely trust.  We say, “a good man is hard to find” and we can also say “a good salesperson is hard to find”.  When you are the buyer and you find one you are relieved.

What is our salesperson mindset about winning in business? Is it “in the buyer’s success lies our success” and so the business must benefit both parties?  If we are thinking like this then we don’t want: Win-Lose or Lose-Lose or Lose-Win outcomes. We want Win-Win between the buyer and seller.  This sounds simple, but desperate salespeople have trained buyers to be very wary about whose interests this transaction is really designed to serve.

Buyers can feel our salesperson intention and if it is “we win- they lose”, they can feel that too.  We have all made purchasing mistakes which we have come to regret and have have had a harsh internal conversation with ourselves pledging “that will never happen again”. Therefore we salespeople need to be projecting we are honestly searching for a win-win outcome.  We are seeking the reorder.

Now buyer repeat business is a simple equation:  Trust + Relationship = Buyer Loyalty

Buyer loyalty is an emotional and behavioral commitment to keep using us. Buyer trust reflects the buyer’s belief that the salesperson will focus on the buyer’s interest and that the salesperson is reliable.  There is a horizontal scale to represent the buyer/seller relationship.

On the left horizontal extreme, we have the product pusher who is focused on getting the highest price and then moving on to the next buyer.  On the right horizontal extreme, we have the trusted advisor salesperson who is focused on mutual benefit and a continuing relationship with the buyer.  Where do you currently sit on that scale? 

Let’s drop the rhetoric, shall we.  We all know brands that say one thing publicly, but internally, their messaging about how to treat the customer is entirely different. What is the real message you are getting from your bosses about how to think about the buyer? If we want a long career in sales, then we all need to be moving ourselves to the right on that scale.  Now it may not be with the current employer, if you find they have the wrong mindset. We need to find a solution and a company that really serves the buyer.  As professionals we will be very happy to work in that environment.

How do we build trust?  There are Five  Drivers of Trust:

1. Confident in our intention that we are creating win-win outcomes.

2. Competence that we can serve the buyer properly. It isn’t much help if our heart is the right place, but we are totally useless and unreliable as a salesperson.

3. Customer focused 100% of the time. The buyer needs to know we are trying to help them succeed and that we believe that inside their success lies our success.

4. Communication skills are vital. Each side needs to know what is supposed to be going on, what are the expectations and what are the commitments.

5. Providing massive value must be the salesperson’s mantra. If we can’t add value to the buyer, then we have no right to be in sales.

Trust is the most expensive thing a salesperson can lose.  The cost of building trust with the client is much cheaper by comparison.  Let’s never be like those bad egg salespeople who constantly mix this calculation up.  We know the right path of the professional in sales and so let’s commit to treading that straight and narrow path every day.