Two Keys to Great Client Relationships

What do you consider the most important factor in a great client relationship? Many people would say being liked is high up on the list, but sales trainer and referral expert Paul McCord begs to differ. Today he'll share what is and isn't necessary for a great client relationship.

"Despite the advice given by so many trainers that being liked by prospects is the key to sales success and to strong client relationships, the fact is that being liked by prospects and clients is well down the list of characteristics necessary to establish strong, lasting client relationships," says McCord. "In fact, being liked by your client isn't even necessary. There are thousands of examples of client/seller relationships where the client doesn't like the seller."

If you want to create superior relationships with your clients you must learn how to:

Establish Rapport
Often confused with being liked, rapport has little to do with being liked but everything to do with connecting with your client on a level where you understand your client on both an intellectual and emotional level. The dictionary defines rapport as a "harmonious mutual understanding," a meeting of the minds. Rapport may encourage the client to like you, but by no means is it necessary and certainly at times, rapport is present even while being liked is absent.

Building rapport demands you focus your attention on your prospect or client, not on what you want to get out of the session, what you're going to say next, or how you're going to get the signature on the contract. Much that has been written about building rapport has to do with tricks - matching the client's tone of voice or speech pattern, mimicking behavior, and the like. Although these may be helpful, I've found that more basic actions are more effective at building rapport - really listening to the client, hearing what they say instead of what I want them to say, making sure that I understand what they really mean, responding to the question they asked instead of the question I wanted them to ask, and answering their questions openly and honestly. In addition, asking questions that not only allow them to fully state their wants, needs, goals, and opinions, but that encourage them to do so.

Building rapport is about communication. The matching and mimicking tricks deal with non-verbal communication, which is certainly important, but the real skill comes in learning to verbally communicate; learning to listen, to encourage open dialogue and discussion, learning to accept divergent points of view; and learning how to give guidance and direction in a manner that supports the client and moves them in the right direction rather than creating a chasm between yourself and your client.

Establish Trust
Trust, even more than rapport is critical for successful long-term client relationships. The dictionary defines trust as "a firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing." "Trust implies depth and assurance of feeling that is often based on inconclusive evidence."

Trust is difficult to establish and easy to lose. Trust for most people isn't built on words alone, but on a combination of words and actions. For most clients, trust isn't established during a single meeting or even over a few meetings. Trust is earned by having one's actions match their words.

Building trust, just like building rapport, is an activity. It doesn't just happen, it's created by actively doing the things that build trust - by being honest in words and deeds, by doing exactly what you say you're going to do, by putting your client's good ahead of yours.

If you really want to create strong, lasting relationships with your clients that will be the foundation of your business, that will generate strong client referrals for you, and that will produce business year after year, invest time and effort in learning the secrets of building rapport and trust. Don't worry about being liked, being cute, or being their pal. Concentrate on being their trusted advisor, the one who really understands their wants and needs and who they know unselfishly pursues the best possible solution to those wants and needs for them. That's the secret to great client relationships.

Paul McCord, a leading Business Development Strategist and president of McCord Training, works with companies and sales leaders to help them increase sales and profits by finding and connecting with high quality prospects in ways prospects respect and respond to. He is the author of the popular Sales and Sales Management Blog

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Creating a Great 2009 Now

Yesterday we got some great tips from sales trainer Paul McCord on how to start building a great 2009 now. Here's some more excellent advice to help you get started:

Commit Yourself to Working with Prospects, Not 'Hopes'
Many salespeople waste huge amounts of time working with 'prospects' that are nothing but hopes and prayers. In a weak economy you cannot afford to waste your time with 'hopes.' 'Hopes' are not only time killers, they're moral killers.

Commit yourself to learning how to really qualify prospects and then spend your time working only with them. Let your 'hopes' go. Understand also that there is a difference between a 'hope' and a real long-term prospect.

Commit Yourself to Planning and Organizing for Success
Top producers plan for their success. They know where they are going and how they are going to get there. They leave nothing to chance.

They know when and how they will prospect. They know when and why they will engage in training. They know who their prospects are, where to find them, and how to connect with them. They have realistic, well-defined goals - and know how they will achieve those goals. They run their sales business like a business. They don't just show up for work in the morning, wondering what they'll do that day.

They know. They know because they know where they're going and what they must do to get there.

Planning is critical to success. During the reminder of December, create your written plan for 2009. Set your goals for selling, for training, for prospecting and personal marketing. A plan isn't a plan unless it is specific and written.

Commit Yourself to Working with the Clients You Want to Work With
Most salespeople are relegated to working with anyone who'll buy--jerks, price shoppers, overly demanding opportunists. Top producers, on the other hand, work only with clients they want to work with.

You don't have to resign yourself to working with clients you can't stand. You don't have to take whatever comes your way. You, too, can join the ranks of those who work only with clients you enjoy working with and who appreciate your efforts. But you can't do it unless you learn to find and connect with prospects you want to work with.

Cold calling, direct mail, faxing fliers, and many other traditional methods of prospecting put you in a position of having to deal with whomever shows an interest in your products or services, whereas learning to generate quality referrals from your clients, networking through industry associations where a large number of your prospects gather, and other more sophisticated methods of finding and connecting with prospects will give you the opportunity to select and work with those prospects you want to work with.

Commit to moving your sales business from a catch as catch can business to one that you control by learning how to find and connect with high quality prospects that you like and respect and who will appreciate your work on their behalf.

Time is short. 2009 can be your best year ever if you commit yourself to taking the steps necessary to create the business you want, not the one happenstance dictates for you. It won't be easy. It will take energy. You'll have to invest in yourself. But the payoff is a career that will give you satisfaction, enjoyment, and a secure future. The time is now. Just do it.

Paul McCord is president of McCord Training, an international sales training and consulting firm located in Texas. He is the author of the popular Sales and Sales Management Blog. He may be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com

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Make December the Foundation of a Great 2009

Weak economy? Slower sales? Worried about next year? Yes, the economy is much weaker than at this time last year. And, yes, sales are harder to come by now than they have been in a long time.

"Nevertheless, these conditions don't mean you have to fret or resign yourself to struggling through 2009," says sales trainer Paul McCord. "Instead of fretting, resigning yourself to a poor year, or even giving up completely and finding another occupation, you can turn 2009 into your strongest year ever."

Instead of worrying, feeling sorry for yourself, or getting depressed, take the month of December to give yourself the gift of a strong 2009 by taking control of your sales business by committing yourself to implement these strategies from McCord:

Commit Yourself to Using Your Time Wisely
Time is the only thing you have to sell, and when you're faced with a tough selling environment, how you use your time is of utmost importance. Now more than ever you must concentrate your time on doing only those things that are necessary for success: finding, selling, and serving clients. Everything else must be eliminated or minimized.

As salespeople, we only have two types of time at our disposal - money making time and busy work time. Money making time is the time we spend doing those things that make us an income: prospecting, selling, and serving our customers. Busy work time is the time we spend doing everything else - organizing, designing fliers, shooting the breeze with our associates, preparing to prepare to do something.

Studies indicate that the typical salesperson only works about 20 to 25% of the time (work being defined as being engaged in money making activities). That, of course, means we're spending 75 to 80% of our time in busy work activities.

If you want 2009 to be a great year, you must turn that equation around and spend 75 to 80% - or more - of your time making money rather than wasting your time doing things that really don't matter.

Commit Yourself to Improving Your Skills
Now more than ever it is imperative you sharpen your selling skills. Like any other activity, the more you develop your skills, the better the results of our efforts. Even after years of coaching and practicing, top professional athletes are constantly studying, improving, practicing.

To become a top salesperson you have to have a solid understanding of psychology, you have to be an accomplished communicator, know the right questions to ask to discover your prospect's underlying wants and needs, be able to control the conversation without manipulating your prospect, know where and how to find and connect with quality prospects, have a thorough understanding of your products and services and how they will satisfy your prospect's need, and dozens of other individual skills.

Top sales producers spend 10 to 15 times as much time, effort, and money in sharpening their skills as the average salesperson. Their production didn't come through luck or happenstance. For the vast majority, their success didn't come by chance - they earned their success through hard work, study and practice. They read the books, listened to the CD's, attended the seminars, hired the sales coach, and applied what they learned. They stumbled and fumbled and practiced until they became experts in each of the individual skills. And yet they still invest the hours and the dollars to be constantly improving.

Commit yourself, right now, to doing the same.

We'll be back tomorrow with more advice from McCord on how you can create a foundation this month for a great 2009.

Paul McCord is president of McCord Training, an international sales training and consulting firm located in Texas. He is the author of the popular Sales and Sales Management Blog. He may be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com

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"But I'm Always Prospecting!"

I read a great post recently on Paul McCord's blog about how "busy" salespeople can be. This is the same guy who only reads email and answers phone calls at four specific times throughout the day (something I haven't been able to bring myself to do!), so I trust he knows what he's talking about when it comes to productivity.

Here's his story:

"But I'm always prospecting." That was Rachel's response when we began talking about her failure to generate enough business to make the cut with her broker/dealer. Rachel is a relatively new salesperson who has been struggling for months and she and her manager have been trying to find a way to get her on track.

It didn't take long for the conversation to get around to her activities, in particular her prospecting activities. She was baffled by her lack of success because as she said, she was 'always prospecting.'

Rachel showed me a list of several hundred names and phone numbers she had on a call list - a few dozen had check marks beside them, even fewer were scratched through. She showed me the stacks of fliers and letters she had mailed out. She showed me a list of networking events she had attended over the past couple of months. She showed me a passel of follow-up emails she had sent out. She told me that her business card had been added to every corkboard in every restaurant, laundromat, and other business that had a board to display customers' cards.

Rachel had been busy; there was no doubt about that. The problem was although she had been busy, she hadn't been prospecting. In reality she was finding ways not to prospect. She engaged in a great deal of activity, but the activity she engaged in wasn't the activity that would produce business; instead, it was the activity that made her feel good, made her feel productive, allowed her to convince herself that she was being extremely active.

We salespeople tend to focus on activity - after all, activity is what gets us in the door, gets us the business we must have in order to succeed. But activity alone is fruitless. Activity for activity's sake is just as sure a way to failure as inactivity.

Investing time and energy in the wrong activities has killed as many sales careers as inactivity has. As salespeople we have three very basic duties - finding and connecting with quality prospects, working with those prospects to help them satisfy needs or wants, and insuring that they are taken care of during and after the sale. Everything else is busy work and busy work doesn't make a sale, doesn't generate income, and doesn't move us toward our sales or income goals.

Before you engage in any activity consider whether that activity is income producing or not. If it isn't directly producing income, does it really need to be done? If not, move on to an activity that will directly lead to a sale.

Author of "Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals," and "SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar," Paul McCord is president of McCord & Associates, a sales training and management-consulting firm.

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