The importance of being customer-centric and looking at the situation through their eyes, building rapport, understanding the importance of value and why it is highly personal and, if you're a sales person, knowing when to shut up!

1. Sales and Marketing professionals:
Do you understand your customer?
Seeing their point of view and building
rapport
C S Johal

2. Understanding your customer
• “Do you think or do you know?” – This is something
constantly asked by Sales & Marketing Directors of
their sales team – we can all assume what the needs
and wants of our customers are, we can assume a
situation, but until we ask them the right questions,
we’ll never know.
• Why is this important?

3. Important because value is highly
personal
• “Features Tell, Benefits Sell” is a common sales cliché
but to some extent this is very true.
• Taking this a step further is essential.
• Value is highly personal, what I highly value may be
of no value to the next person
• An example of this:

4. Simple example of selling value
• Feature: This new car has a hands-free bluetooth
connection
• Benefit: You can talk, legally and hands-free on your
mobile phone while driving without the need for any
headsets / earpieces
• Value: You’ll be able to listen in to that 4pm
conference call on the way back from the office
instead of at your desk, enabling you to get home
sooner and [_____insert value here_____]

5. [_____insert value here_____]
• A keen golfer will see the value in getting home
quicker so they can squeeze in a round after work
• A new parent will see the value in getting home
quicker to spend more time with their new family
• So bluetooth handsfree = more golf = happiness
• Or bluetooth handsfree = more family time =
happiness
• You can’t sell the benefit of playing an extra mid-
week round of golf to somebody who hates golf?!

6. Asking great questions
• A bad sales person talks a lot (and doesn’t listen)
• A good sales person listens a lot (and talks less)
• A great sales person asks great questions (listens,
understands and adapts, builds rapport)
• Think of it like a talk show interview – friendly,
engaging, open questions, probing for more
information while maintaining a nice conversation all
without it feeling like an interrogation.
• Some say this is a skill, some say a science
• Truthfully – it’s both, some are born with it, others
work very hard to perfect it

7. JUST SHUT UP
• Very easy for enthusiastic and passionate sales people to
talk a lot, there’s nothing wrong with enthusiasm and
passion.
• But sales people often focus all their effort and attention
on talking, planning what to say next and not on truly
listening and adapting their conversation.
• How would you feel if you were the customer?
• Sales people often miss “buying signals” because they’re
too busy talking, they find silence awkward and have to fill
these gaps by talking – shows a lack of confidence
• Silence is extremely poweful, especially in negotiations!

8. Say, you’re in the market for a new phone
• Sales person talks about the benefits of a new
phone, cool apps for socialising, great music apps,
tons of minutes, texts and data.
• Is this what you’re really looking for?
• You may need it to work internationally because you
travel, you may not care about music on it but want
to know more about the camera
• Value could be – great camera to capture memories
of your kids so you can look at pictures and videos of
them while you travel internationally which would
make you happy

9. Imagine yourself in your customer’s shoes
• Is the sales person using acronyms that make no
sense to you or using jargon?
• Has the sales person asked about your needs and
wants?
• Has the sales person assessed how much time you
have available to talk with them?
• Has the sales person established the facts or just
assuming?

10. Talented Sales People have the abilty to:
• Put themselves in their customer’s shoes
• Build a great rapport (mirroring behaviour, talking
about mutual interests, body language, listening etc)
• Understand what their customer truly values and
then base everything around this
• Ask great, open questions in a relaxed way that flows
and can adapt (chat show style not interrogation)
• Knows when to shut up!

11. This often comes with experience
• Rookies at the beginning of their Sales career often
make these mistakes but learn with time as they gain
experience
• Although building rapport is a skill that can be
learned through specific techniques (NLP etc) some
sales people are more personable than others
• Great sales people are customer focused and
manage their ego effectively

12. Always keeping your customer in mind
• With internal Sales and Marketing strategies it is very
easy to lose sight of the most important thing – our
customer
• Not helped by complex or laborious processes “all
this would be so much simpler and easier if we didn’t
have all these customers!”
• Understand the customer journey (is it an enjoyable
experience to do business with you / your
company?)

13. Differentiation – a customer perspective
• A product/service differentiator is only relevant if it is
a true and significant differentiating factor in the
eyes of your customer – focus on value (highly
personal)
• If leveraging this differentiation is key to your
success, ensure that it ties in with what your
customer finds valuable.

14. Targets and goals
• Instead of focusing on our targets and goals (which
are still very important), understand and focus on
your customer’s targets and goals.
• If you can help them be successful in achieving their
targets and reaching their goals – your success will
surely follow.
C S Johal