egyii blog

It’s not about you.
It’s all about them.
Your clients, that is.

Building personal relationships (which enhance your business relaionships) requires a dialogue, and a dialogue requires great questions.

The dialogue then needs to be  focused on the client, not you.

Great relationship building questions are better when they are not formulated for an immediate business result. You don’t need to “close” all the time with questions. You do  need to be honest, open, straightforward and trustworthy in your approach.

Many people have formulated numerous questions to create dialogues; here are the ones that have worked best for me.

Examples of Questions

How are you measured and what are your KPIs?

Tell me something about you and what you have done in business or your personal life that will surprise me.

What book(s) are you currently reading?

What do you do outside of work? What are your hobbies and interests?

How did you come about getting to your current role?

What frustrates you the most in your business today?

Tell me something about your company that I probably don’t already know (assuming you have already your research on the Internet)

There are many more questions that you can formulate on your own- work with whatever you are comfortable with.

Tip 1: Ask questions in areas where you may have similarities with your prospect/client (such as the area you grew up in or schools you attended) to build a common ground-this  is a lot more powerful.

Tip 2: It never hurts to preface a question with ‘Do you mind if I ask you…?” This gives you permission to ask and makes the prospect/client more comfortable.

The timing needs to be perfect on your questions to ensure sensitivity. You may not want to ask some of these questions on your first meeting- do it when you are comfortable. Keep in mind that you are trying to connect emotionally- so many business questions are based on logic, and so many business decisions are based on emotion.

Why are these great questions? They are not too personal and not overly business like. They bridge the gap between the two and can open up further conversations and build a stronger relationship.

Where to use these questions? You can use them to start off the conversation when you first meet and greet, or on the second or third meeting - whatever you are most comfortable with.

I also recommend you use them to set the tone for a lead into something like, or similar to, Trusted Advisor Associates’ ELFEC or whatever your sales process (Huthwaite SPIN, Value Selling, etc) suggests. They set a good tone.

Great questions, when done sensitively and when focused on the client, work wonders.

If you have any you want to share that you have been successful with, please do so by commenting.

 Trip Allen (Happy New Year!), Team Egyii, Singapore

What am I talking about here? Coffee? A hospital?

You may need both to help build stronger business relationships…but that is not what I am referring to.

The “Drip Method” is all about feeding the client bits and pieces of valuable information to “hook” them into a long term relationship.

How is this done?

To start, you need to always be:

Understanding the client’s business

Anticipating his needs

Listening to him to understand his needs/priorities

Keeping a record of those needs/priorities so you can constantly refer to them

What is next?

You use the vast world of the internet, your creative mind and your network. You then gather the pertinent information, put it all together and send “value packages” to your prospects and clients.

With the value packages of client pertinent information, you feed your prospects and clients, on ocassion, through emails or face to face, pertinent articles (preferably ones that you write in your own blogs) and verbal tid-bits of information. Make sure that every message is personalised and timely. Make sure it is unobtrusive.

What does this do? It keeps you in front of the client with their agenda, not yours. It builds a value add relationship. Simple as that.

Keep in mind that this requires a lot of thinking and research… and it takes time, but it will bring results.

By the way, I drink my coffee expresso style…

Cheers.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

I have been out of the radar for a while as last week I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Trusted Advisors Associates  programme “Being a Trusted Advisor” held in Washington D.C. on December 8th and 9th.

The reason why I was there was to participate in a live programme conducted by Charlie Green and Andrea Howe, along with Sandy Styer and Stewart Hirsch, the programme leaders of the Trusted Advisor Associates team. The one and a half day programme, “Being a Trusted Advisor,” was attended by approximately 31 people with approximately 21 attendees from various backgrounds and companies from consulting firms, to bio-tech companies, to non-profit organizations, Etc.

I was also there to “earn my stripes” as a programme developer and facilitator for Trusted Advisor Associates in Singapore and Asia. There were about 10 of us there for coaching and facilitating purposes coming from as far away as the UK, Israel and Singapore (yes, that is me).

There was great enthusiasm from everyone, and I believe that is due to the content, the validity and the  timeliness of the topic of trust. Everyone seems to believe that trust REALLY works (I am and have been convinced from the beginning). But what really caught me and made me believe (also probably true for others) as to why trust is so powerful was how the Trusted Advisors Associates team led the programme with their trust values and beliefs.

All in all I observed the following (and more) in action:

Collaboration

Transparency

Authenticity

Empathy

“Zero” ego

Intimacy

…and more.

All of this made me feel even more strongly that I wanted to be a part of a winning team. But, what struck me the most was how Charlie handled the contract situation. Rather than sign documents for NDAs, various agreements, Etc. for intellectual property, we simply raised our hands and repeated an oath.

WOW! Business made simple. Faster. Easier. All based on trust.

To quote Charlie, ”It’s a win-win. Except maybe for the lawyers.”

Just imagine. I am an actual ”client” of the Trusted Advisors Associates team (as I will pay them licensing fees). How does this “treatment of trust” make me feel? To be honest, great. Now, put yourself in the shoes of your client, practice these principles (and more) and see how effective all of this can be. Imagine how they will feel?

For more on this, Charlie wrote the following article Can Trust Replace Contracts?

I am truly impressed, happy and proud  to be a part of this amazing  team and programme. Thank you Charlie, Andrea, Sandy and Stewart.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

 (A true story)

Successful.

Uneducated.

Wealthy.

Four priority bank accounts.

Four banks.

Four different Relationship Managers.

There is a fifth bank that also wants his business.

The fifth bank will get his business- if they do it right.

Why and how?

This particular “prospect” is an acquainance of one of the bank executives. The prospect is open with the executive, shares his personal life, discusses business matters and financial matters, socializes regularly with him, talks sports and even shares aspects of  his social life. He respects the bank executive for his knowledge and there appears to be no threat. He is comfortable with the relationship. They are friends. 

Interestingly enough, the bank executive is not a relationship manager- he is not in sales.

How does the bank executive do what is best for the bank, and “convert” this into a sale? That is the dilemma.

Clearly the “prospect” is an unsettled man. He has new-found wealth and is somewhat leery of the people around him. This is probably why he spreads his wealth between four banks and four relationship managers.

How many times have you come across this or a similar situation to this?  A situation where there is a bond or relationship between a client or prospect and a non-sales related executive? From my experience in my days of technology sales, quite often the relationship was between the client and the sales engineer. Is that because there was no “threat” from the sales engineer? Was he providing more value? Was he not chasing the sales for the close?  Most probably.

So why is this happening and why does it happen? And how do we turn the banking scenario around and turn it into a “sale?” I will let you figure that out on your own.

For related articles (and for a clue to why this may happen) see:

Two Simple Keys to Success in Sales

Want to Add Value in Your Sales “Process?” Try Adding Trust

The Agile Mind of a Salesperson: Motivation

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore