Relationship Marketing

The selling process is really the beginning of a relationship. In fact, your relationship with a sales prospect, who is now your customer, should continue to grow.

Relationship Marketing can also help uncover sales prospect. You don’t need to wait for sales prospect to appear before starting relationship marketing. For example, if you are a Property Agent, join some community or religious organization, or some business networking organization, and volunteer for some appointment. You can volunteer to be a transport co-ordinator, for example, in a Church outing/camp, and get to know more people intimately. Start the Sales Process when you feel comfortable with the friends you made.

If you are a Tuition Teacher, you can organize free short-term tuition classes in some Church or Community organization to draw out the potential students. Once you gotten the names of all students, you then offer them full-time tuition classes.

How about Insurance Agents (Financial Planners)? You can seek maximum exposure for yourself, by planting yourself at the welcoming committee of a religious organization. In this way, you get to know most visitors and newcomers. The Sales Process can begin later when you feel comfortable with them. Alternatively, volunteer yourself for some leadership appointment, or acting role in a musical. You get maximum exposure from these activities, and people will know you. You are on the way to relationship marketing.

Investment or relationship managers can also solicit their business this way. You can even volunteer to manage the Organization’s funds. Any successful Sales Professional will tell you that business will not come your way till you asked for it. So do not be shy, plan it, make friends, and then ask for their business. You are on the way to relationship marketing.

It is far less expensive to cultivate your existing customer base and sell more services to them than it is to seek new, single-transaction customers. Focusing on customer needs, through what is called relationship marketing, is a proven method for repeat sales and a positive business image. You will still need to seek new customers, of course, but don't overlook the untapped potential of your existing ones.

Relationship marketing also increases the return on your sales investment. When you sell an additional product to an existing customer, you don't have to repeat preliminary steps such as prospecting, rapport-building and information gathering because you're working upon a foundation that's already been laid. So, repeat sales are less expensive to obtain than new sales.

Relationship marketing consists of:

·         Listening to Customers
They'll tell you what they need from you if you make it clear that you are paying attention to what they are saying.

·         Asking Questions about Their Problems and Needs
If  they don't  volunteer  information, ask questions. Then, focus on solving problems or meeting needs rather than selling them another product. They will  appreciate your  interest  and you  will, most  likely, make a sale in the long  run.  And, even if you  don't  make an additional sale, customers may refer you to  someone else based on the excellent service you've provided them.

·         Being honest
Don't try to sell  something that's not needed. Likewise, if you can't fulfill particular customer needs, tell  them, and try to help them find  someone who will. Your helpfulness will be long remembered and those customers are more likely to come back to you when they need your type of product or service again.

·         Keeping in Touch
Mail your customers:

• Thank you notes for orders, referrals or continued business.
• Short notes about positive meetings or phone calls.
• A newspaper or magazine article about a customer's business.
• Articles or information about a customer's competition.
• An announcement of your new product or service.
• A notice of a special sale or offer. Include coupons for customer discounts or invite customers to special pre-sale days.
• A newsletter from your company, including beneficial tips and information for your customers.
• A lead for their business.
• A notice of a meeting or seminar of interest.
• A reminder of a pending order or reorder.

In your correspondence, be brief and to the point. Try to make the note personal and handwritten, if possible. And, make certain you use good English and spelling.

Army recruit’s hand grenade throw goes awfully wrong

An army recruit in China had to be quickly dragged to safety by his drill sergeant after fudging a hand grenade exercise and almost killing himself.
The 48-second clip shows the Chinese soldier jogging up to his drill sergeant and preparing his grenade. He throws it, but instead of flying across the wall of sandbags constructed around the ditch they stood in, the grenade hits the wall and falls back into the ditch.

The desperate recruit instantly dives face-down onto the platform, while his quick-thinking drill sergeant jumps into the other side of the ditch from where the grenade falls.

His sergeant drags him into the other side of the ditch split-seconds before the grenade explodes in a cloud of dirt and smoke.

Follow-up and Service After the Sale

You have made the sale. Now what? Some sales people believe that follow-up after the sale is just as important as making the sale. That's when your relationship with a customer can mature and develop into loyalty to your product.

However, I’ve seen many Sales Professional moving on to other prospects, and no longer paying attention to the customer he had won over. Why is that so? Maybe he thinks the job is done once the prospect is converted into a customer. It will be a big mistake, because the customer can always switch to buying from others if the service is not forth-coming.

The trick here is to make the customer your best friend. Lunch with him, talk to him or her about family, hobbies, events, personalities, etc. Get close him in a way you know best. Spend time with the customer. Do not ignore him after the sale is made. I know of colleagues playing mahjong and football with their customers. Some went for movies together, while other share their stories on financial investments.

Building long-term relationships with customers allows you to leverage or make additional use of your initial investment of time and money spent selling to that customer. In other words, you don't have to spend time prospecting, qualifying and conducting other pre-sales activities for that particular customer again. You save lots of time!

There is no better advertising than a satisfied customer. Good follow-up and service after the sale will:

·         establish and maintain your good reputation,

·         build goodwill between you customers and your business,

·         and generate repeat and referral business.

One example I witnessed involved this Sales Professional marketing Cable Tray to Offshore Rigs. He made such good efforts winning over the customer (and even playing mahjong together) that every time the customer (it is big shipbuilder in Singapore) win a rig building contract, he gets the cable tray contract. Many competitors wanted that piece of the business, but they don’t stand a chance.

Many Sales Professionals develop a system of getting clients the easy way and using relationship marketing to generate easy sales. I will discuss this in my next post.

Jack-Up Offshore Rig

Jack-up rigs are mobile offshore structure/platforms used for exploration and drilling of oil and gas deposits. These platforms are normally provided with three legs which extend through openings in a floatable hull of the jack-up rig. These legs are used to support the hull.

A typical leg of a jack-up rig has three mutually parallel chord members and each chord member is provided with a pair of opposing rack member that extend longitudinally along the length of the chords. The outward surfaces of the racks are provided with rack teeth, which engages respective teeth of the pinions carried by elevating jacking gearboxes.

Each leg is provided with jacking assemblies for moving the leg vertically with respect to the hull. As the legs are “jacked”, the hull is elevated or lowered.

I will discuss the jacking assemblies and the types of planetary gearboxes used in this unique application in my next blog post.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Closing the Sale

Many Sales Professionals do well in the first four steps of the Sales Process. But when it comes to the fifth step (Closing the Sale), they hesitate. They fear asking for the Order. They wait for the prospect to say “I’ll buy from you. Here’s the purchase order.” But this will never happen.

If you are a professional Sales Person, you should not be shy to ask for their business. Although you should never be shy about asking for business, prospects will probably give you some signals when they are ready to become customers. Here are some signals that suggest they are ready to buy:

·         Asking about availability or delivery time

·         Asking specific questions about rates, prices or affordability

·         Asking about features, options, quality, guarantees or warranties

·         Asking positive questions about your business

·         Asking to see the regulatory or classification society certificates

·         Asking for something to be repeated 

·         Making statements about problems with previous vendors; they may be seeking reassurance from you that you won't pose the same problems

·         Asking about follow-up service or other products you carry

·         Requesting a sample or asking you to repeat a demonstration for them or for others in their company or family

·         Requesting to visit you office premise or factory and warehouse

·         Asking about other satisfied customers. You should have a list of satisfied customers ready to give to prospects who ask. (Make sure you've already contacted these customers about serving as references)

These are some techniques that often help prospects make the decision to buy.

·         Quit talking after you ask a closing question. Give prospects the opportunity to say yes.

·         Offer an added service, such as delivery, or commissioning.

·         Offer a choice, such as "would you prefer the blue one or silver one?"

·         Offer an incentive such as a 10 percent discount for purchases made now.

·         Lead the customer through a series of minor decisions about such factors as their preferred color or model or feature that are easier to make and that lead to make the bigger decision to actually purchase.

·         Don't give up too soon. Learn to understand prospects' buying styles; some people take longer than others to make a decision.

So what’s next after you have made the sale? This is the crucial last step of the Sales Process. Whether you can secure a long-term business from your client depends on how you treat your prospect after the award of the contract. Stay tuned for the next blog post.