Many people think that the name of the game in selling is to create satisfied customers. The problem with customers who are merely satisfied, is they are likely to switch to a competitor if they think they can get a better deal. If you expect to achieve big time success in selling your goal should be to create loyal customers. As the late quality guru, W. Edwards Demming put it, “A loyal customer is excited about doing business with you, is willing to wait in line, and gladly pays premium prices. Furthermore, a loyal customer requires no advertising, doesn’t need to be sold over and over and continually brags about the merits of doing business with to other potential customers.”
Loyal customers are important for two reasons: First, when you have loyal customers, you really don’t have any competition. Second, when you have loyal customers, they actually function as an extension of your own sales force.
The key to creating loyal customers is simply listening. If you listen long enough and hard enough, the customer will tell you exactly what it’s going to take to maintain his or her loyalty. All you need to do then is act on this information and you are home free. As simple as this sounds, most of us don’t listen very to our customers. We tend to be preoccupied with our own problems and needs rather than those of our customers. On the other hand, if you can discipline yourself to take the time to actively listen to what your customers have to say, the results are phenomenal!
For example, I was reading about a sales executive who was reflecting on his first sales job. He said, “I spent forever getting to know a small handful of customers really well and it paid off handsomely. In no time at all, I came in at 195 percent of quota, tops in my division. The vice president of sales at corporate called me and said, ‘Great job, but I noticed that you averaged only 1.2 sales calls a day. Company average is 4.6. Just think of what you could sell if you could get your average up to par!'” The salesperson said, “you can guess my response after I came down off the ceiling; I told him, Just think what the rest could sell if they could get their average down to 1.2.'”
The reason this salesperson was so successful was that he was taking the time to listen to his customers and then using this information to make sure his product or service was tailored to satisfy each customer’s current needs. He was able to work smarter instead of harder, which paid off handsomely for him. As Tom Peters said during a speech several years ago, “If you listen to what your customers have to say and then do something about it, the bottom line is, you’ll get filthy rich!”
When it comes to a tough sell, patience really is a virtue. Shortly after I returned from Vietnam, I joined an Army Reserve unit to help pay for my doctoral studies. I was then given command of the unit, which meant that I was responsible for everything regarding that unit, including recruiting.
The unit I took over was supposed to have 104 people in it. After I performed a personnel audit, I found that it only had 54 people on its rolls. In addition, 26 of these remaining 54 were getting out of the Army Reserve within six months. And the draft had just ended, which was the biggest reason people joined reserve units during the Vietnam era. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the next day a general from Indianapolis came up and informed me that if I didn’t bring my unit up to full strength within six months, I would be relieved of my command.
At this point, I really wanted to tell this insensitive general what he could do with his reserve unit, but my reputation was important to me. So I decided I would give it a go and try to recruit the necessary 76 people. Talk about a tough sell!
Given the circumstances, I knew a hard sales approach wouldn’t work. So instead of trying to sign potential recruits up immediately, I got to know them first. I also made it a point to go to their homes and get to know members of their families. In a number of cases, these potential recruits would have a friend or two at their homes when I made these visits. We would talk about the future, about the army or anything these people were interested in, but I never tried to sell people on signing up for the Army Reserve while I was on one of these visits. I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a payoff because during the first four-and-a-half months, I recruited only 11 people. But during the next six weeks, 71 people signed up! It was truly amazing. One person walked into my office with 13 of his friends, all of whom wanted to enlist in my unit. A dozen others brought at least one friend with them when they signed up.
If you only observed what went on during those last six weeks, it looked like I had a natural gift for attracting and selling people. They came in from all directions almost begging for a chance to become part of my unit. What wouldn’t have been apparent, however, was the amount of patience I exercised during the preceding four-and-a-half months. Yes, it was a lot of work and took a lot of time, but the payoff was phenomenal.
Ross R. Reck, Ph.D.
Author of The X-Factor: Getting
Extraordinary Results From Ordinary People
