10
Things Every Customer Wants
Surprisingly,
the best price and best value is at the bottom of the customer's priority list.
See what's at the top.
Why
does a customer buy from one vendor rather than another? According to research
recently conducted by The
Rain Group
Customers tend to buy from sellers who are
superlative at the following tasks:
1. Bring New Perspectives and Ideas
If
customers could diagnose their own problems and come up with workable solutions
on their own, they would do so. The reason that they're turning to you and your
firm is that they're stuck and need your help. Therefore, you must be able to
bring something new to the table.
2. Be Willing to Collaborate
Customers
absolutely do NOT want you to sell them something, even something that's wonderful.
They want you to work with them to achieve a mutual goal, by being responsive
to the customer's concerns and ways of doing business. Ideally, customers want
you to become integral to their success.
3. Have Confidence In Your Ability to Achieve
Results
Customers
will not buy from you if you can't persuade them that you, your firm, and your
firms offerings will truly achieve the promised results. It is nearly
impossible to persuade a customer to believe in these things unless you
yourself believe in them. You must make your confidence contagious.
4. Listen, Really Listen, to the Customer
When they're describing themselves
and their needs, customers sense immediately when somebody is just
waiting for a break in the conversation in order to launch into a sales pitch.
In order to really listen, you must suppress your own inner-voice and forget
your goals. It's about the customer, not about you.
5.
Understand ALL the Customer's Needs
It's not enough to "connect the
dots" between customer needs and your company's offering. You must also
connect with the individuals who will be affected by your offering, and
understand how buying from you will satisfy their personal needs, like career
advancement and job security.
6.
Help the Customer Avoid Potential Pitfalls
Here's where many sellers fall flat.
Customers know that every business decision entails risk but they also want
your help to minimize that risk. They want to know what could go wrong
and what has gone wrong in similar situations, and what steps you're
taking to make sure these problems won't recur.
7.
Craft a Compelling Solution
Solution selling is definitely not
dead. Customers want and expect you to have the basic selling skill of defining
and proposing a workable solution. What's different now though is that the
ability to do this is the "price of entry" and not enough, by itself,
to win in a competitive sales situation.
8.
Communicate the Purchasing Process
Customers hate it when sellers dance
around issues like price, discounts, availability, total cost, add-on options,
and so forth. They want you to be able to tell them, in plain and simple
language, what's involved in a purchase and how that purchase will take place.
No surprises. No last minute upsells.
9.
Connect Personally With the Customer
Ultimately, every selling situation
involves making a connection between two individuals who like and trust each
other. As a great sales guru once said: "All things being equal, most
people would rather buy from somebody they like... and that's true even when
all things aren't equal."
10.
Provide Value That's Superior to Other Options
And here, finally, at the No. 10
spot (below everything else) comes the price and how that price compares to
similar offerings. Unless you can prove that buying from you is the right
business decision for the customer, the customer can and should buy elsewhere.
Geoffrey Jameshttp://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/10-things-every-customer-wants.html?cid=em01016week19a
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