Why Buy From Me? Sales Lessons from Experience

Every sales person asks themselves the question, “Why do they buy from me?” I used to think that it was because I would give them the best price. For a while I thought it was because we delivered a product that was far superior to others. Then I thought it was because of the personal relationship I developed with them.

Over the last 20 years I have found these to be critical to my team’s success:

• It is significantly harder to attract a new customer versus maintaining one. The hard part of convincing them to work with you is over. Now you have to deliver on what you promised. The wolves will always be at their door so you have to continue to stay in front and fight off the wolves.

• Own it, even if it wasn’t you personally. You are your company and your company is you. The customer doesn’t care if the guy who worked for you was incompetent or the vendor screwed up. You are them and they are you. Thus you make a mistake the team makes a mistake and vice versa.

• Know your customers personality and what they want from you. I used to think that a customer always wanted to talk to me about their family, hunting, cars, you name it. What I found out is that some do and some don’t. Adapt your style to what they want. Some people want to be all business and others want it to be personal.

• It’s okay to make money. Great partners understand that in order for you to be in business you have to be profitable. If you are doing a turnkey solution you have to cover the soft costs of the management of process. Remember that if you charge a premium you better deliver on it.

• Just because the first price is the lowest it doesn’t mean the last price will be. If you are good at seeing potential issues before they happen you can be a great asset to your customer. If all you look at it the perfect scenario, your customer then is at risk for additional unexpected costs. That “introductory” price becomes less attractive when you realize that the car didn’t have an engine. Make sure you are educated on what could happen and what will.

At Pleune  Service Company, we value our customers. Our team of account managers and sales people are laser focused on delivering a best in the market experience any time and every time.