egyii blog

Products aren’t the only things that need marketing. People do too. How do you build your presence for your clients- to market yourself and your company?

In a world where millions, if not billions, of people converge on a digital platform, communicate via mobile phones and meet face to face, to really establish a presence, a salesperson should create his own personal brand.

Twitter. Facebook. Linked In. Blogs. All free ways to create your extended presence.

Your extended presence  is a great way to add value to your current relationship. Post and share your content and others’. Build upon subject matter that is relevant to your clients’ needs. Base it on the last conversation you had with your client.

A few helpful hints…peruse the following; Dan Schawbel’s articles as he is the personal branding expert who pens Personal Branding Magazine and, of course,  the business guru Tom Peters, whose  article The Brand Called You was originally written in 1997.

After all, the client’s relationship and loyalty is with the salesperson, not with the company.

Heat up the branding iron.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

How do front-line sales professionals (Relationship Managers, face to face sales, client managers, Etc) effectively connect through high impact conversations?

Challenges to achieveing great sales conversations

There is no doubt that achieving sales targets, regardless of how they are achieved, has become the principle means of measuring success in many companies around the globe, regardless of what they all say they do for their customers.

That then becomes the root of the problem.

From that, we have observed that many conversations with customers are often driven by the sales person’s self interests on the basis of a product promotion, the profitability of a product, the amount of commission or incentive the sales person will receive or urgency to hit a specific target, a business need to increase market share etc. regardless of whether or not that is the right solution for the customer. 

Essentially there is rarely anybody taking a look at the overall picture for the customer, or even conversational guidelines to ensure that sales staff work together in the customer’s best interests.

So how do we  connect effectively and maxmise performance?

There are many well established approaches to selling; relationship selling, customer value selling, needs based selling etc. to suit different business needs and the current economic environment. Terms may change, tough times come and go, but the best practices of having a quality conversation that focuses on the clients best interests versus the sellers to maximize sales performance is still regarded as critical to success.

This would apply to anyone who manages a portfolio of customers on a relationship basis rather than a transactional one and seeks to enhance their ability, knowledge and behaviour to deliver a meaningful sales conversation that engages the client and deepens relationships with both new and existing prospects.

What will make this work?

In order to make programme that changes the focus from “us” to “them” successful, frontline sales professionals people need to be able to:

Assess their own communication strengths and weaknesses and the impact they have on others

Adapt and respond to the communication style, drivers of emotional needs and life stage of their clients

Develop compelling value positioning statements for opening conversations with prospects and existing clients over the telephone and in person

Ask for and gather information using bridging statements and reflective listening techniques to identify opportunities to create value for clients

Summarise and align solutions to the customers’ true needs to establish greater rapport with the client

Keep the client engaged in the conversation when handling client uncertainty or resistance to opportunity

Demonstrate conversational closing statements to confidently ask for the business

For related materials please see:

Maximising sales performance and skills.

Building and rebuilding trust.

Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore

The Connectors: How the World’s Most Successful Businesspeople Build Relationships and Win Clients for Life

 I was encouraged to read “The Connectors” as this fits hand in hand with our philosophy: It is all about the relationship. It also fits well into and has many parallels with trust and The Trusted Advisor programmes.

Maribeth’s reinforces her book and beliefs with loads of timely tips, exercises and stories to back it all up.

Deeper inside, The Connectors presents a five-step methodology that helps you build the kind of high-quality relationships that lead to lifelong clients, repeat customers, more business and endless referrals. The five step methodology is a follows:

Develop a “What’s in it for them” mentality

Listen

Important questions to ask that attract connections

Get the sale to close itself- soft sell tactics

Create a memorable experience

Inside, you’ll learn how to:

Stop networking and start truly connecting

Create loads of referrals and an army of happy customers

Become a “connector,” even if you’ve never been a “people person”

Find your social IQ—and improve it

Put relationship-building principles to work daily

Focus on others and reap the rewards yourself

Ask the right questions—and sell without selling

Differentiate yourself through the impact you have on others

Use speaking skills to develop relationships

In addition, The Connectors includes a wealth of valuable relationship-building technology tools, including tips on using software, the Internet and social media; smart strategies for keeping in touch; speaking tactics that really work; and self-coaching exercises that will change the way you develop relationships.

I contacted Maribeth and asked her why she wrote The Connectors. Here is her response:

“I wrote this book because I have the great fortune in my business to see some incredibly successful professionals use and cultivate relationships in their careers. In fact, in most cases, their ability to connect with others was the key determinent to success. I didn’t want to prove the business relationships were important, I knew that, I wanted to find out how they do it. I interviewed hundreds of CEO’s, entreprenuers and professionals for the book to find out the how to’s so we can all learn how to have even better and more powerful business relationships.”

Connectors is a very timely contribution to today’s tough time in business and relationships. I highly suggest it, whether you are old or new to the wonderful world of building important relationships through “connecting.”

To purchase, contact Amazon.com.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Dealing with Damage Control

Salespeople often feel at a loss when faced with disappointed, upset or angry clients. As an example, a relationship manager in banking dealing with a client whose investments have “soured” in the current economic climate.

What happens?

As a result of these situations, salespeople in general tend to stiffen and panic either on the phone or face to face. This state effectively shuts down the thinking processes and they find themselves lost for words. Just when the client is looking for calm understanding and reassurance, salespeople send signals of discomfort.

Suggestions

You want to enable your salespeople to feel confident about dealing with disappointed clients so that their demeanour is appropriate for the situation.

You want to equip your salespeople with the skills to respond to challenging situations so that clients feel confident about continuing to do business with your company.

Both of these aims work together: by knowing how to respond appropriately to clients, your salespeople will feel more confident and present a calmer, more professional demeanour; and by feeling more confident, they will automatically send the right signals to clients thus reassuring them about your company.

How to Implement the Suggestions

In order to build the confidence, the salespeople need to:

Build confidence in themselves by managing beliefs about:

Themselves (the salespeople) – how they see themselves is critical in achieving confidence.

Their clients – how the RM’s perceive their clients, especially during a downturn when clients are feeling negative towards their suppliers or advisors, also affects their level of confidence.

How salspeople’s clients perceive them – the salespeople’s beliefs about how their clients perceive themselves determines how confident the salespeople feel.

Deal effectively with disappointed clients by:

Responding to negative emotions in a client through pacing and leading. Pacing is done by showing your client that you accept and validate their emotion by mirroring them. Leading is the practice of gradually changing one’s energy level and behaviour such as slowing speech, speaking more softly and changing posture and body language.

Listening for understanding followed by listening to decide if you want to do anything about what you’ve heard. If action is required, a series of questions will be necessary.

Taking responsibility and moving ahead to solve the client’s problem(s). This includes the necessary empowerment and confidence to make the client feel comfortable.

Overall Results

The results below will occur if you take the above actions.

Clients will experience being handled professionally and appropriately during challenging times

Clients will feel sincerely listened to, understood and their emotions and disappointments acknowledged and taken seriously by your company and the salespeople

Salespeople will have a greater sense of empowerment and will therefore gain satisfaction from increasing their capabilities in challenging situations

Your company or financial institution will retain more clients and will receive positive word-of-mouth

Your company or financial institution will stand out in the marketplace for having salespeople who are highly professional

For more information see building and fostering client relationships.

For more blogs on a similar subject matter see relationship management.

James Irvine, Team Egyii, Singapore

Sales professionals often need the proper support and feedback of management to be successful. Sales managers want to support their team members; however, the methods used by the managers can at times be more harmful than helpful.

Why is that?

Often there is a lack of clarity and focus between the manager and the sales professional on the behavioural expectations

Coaches often don’t understand the behavioural change process and therefore cannot gain the commitment of their staff to want to take action

Managers don’t observe their performers ‘in the game’ enough to know how to identify and target key behavioural development opportunities

The typical approach to coaching someone is to “tell” the salesperson what to do vs. asking effective questions to help lead the salesperson to improved performance

What to do about it?

Managers need to be equipped with the right sales coaching skills by understanding how to be an effective coach. They need to  learn skills on how to conduct coaching sessions that develop the key skills and that help change the behaviour of others.

How is this accomplished?

Managers need to:

Build their attributes of an effective sales coach required to create a positive coaching experience

Recognise individual differences in approaches to learning and adapt the coaching discussion to suit the needs of the individual

Identify exactly what skills and behaviours managers expect from their sales professionals in order to achieve the desirable outcomes

Enhance observation skills for assessing and identifying key behaviours, client engagement skills and sales activity at critical stages of the sales process

To provide positive and corrective performance feedback that builds and maintains self esteem

Enhance coaching communication skills (asking and listening) in order to  increase personal commitment to individual development opportunities

Demonstrate competence in the delivery of a  coaching model

Be able to set and monitor personal development plans to reinforce behavioural change after the coaching session

For more information, see maximising sales performance and skills

Andrew Sidwell, Team Egyii, Singapore

Welcome, Andrew, to Team Egyii.

In a nutshell, Andrew brings to clients years of hands on experience in the call centre space and in the learning and development arena, working with major banks, insurance and technology companies, to name a few.

Andrew helps clients with the effective sales conversation and the reinforcement behind it. His focus is on solutions for front line service, sales teams and management:

Frontline sales and acquisition

Frontline customer experience

Leadership and coaching development

For more on Andrew, see Andrew Sidwell and for more on the programmes he has delivered to banking, finance and the tech sector, see the following.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Because salespeople are too “seller focused’ and not “client focused.”

When was the last time you spoke to someone in a social situation and all that person did was talk about himself? I,I, I…me,me, me..Etc. How boring- and self-centred was that encounter? Now transpose that situation into a business scenario- a conversation with a typical salesperson or business person. Features, features, features, our company can do this and that….so many “programmed” questions because the sales process requires it…Etc.

Salespeople (and business people) still tend to act very transactional, focusing on the task at hand, the numbers, the advance, Etc.  Business people tend not to listen or really care. This is  all about “me” and not about the client.

Focus on the client and not “me” or “us.” You will see a difference.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Trust. It is a hot issue.

This is the second of a series of interviews and Podcasts with the leaders in Trust, in anticipation of our August announcement on our new programme on Trust.

In this series we interview Nick Morgan, President of Public Words Inc and author of Give Your Speech, Change the World, Working the Room and Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma. He started his career in writing political speaches and  is a fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy Center and former editor of the Harvard Management Communication Letter.

In this interview we discuss Nick’s passions and background, 4 ways to address authenticity and charisma and great speech deliverers.

Link to Nick’s Podcast

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Client Relationships 

Although the term “client relationship” can be nebulous and can carry broad meanings, client relationships can be defined as a connection, association or involvement with a prospect or ongoing client in a business relationship.

A “relationship” can be achieved through numerous means, for example:

Someone who “surfs” the internet to look for a product, some value or knowledge.

A customer service representative assisting a client with his needs.

Advertising, PR and word of mouth marketing that connects a product with a client (or a client with a product).

A customer service survey, requesting for feedback.

But, from Egyii’s perspective, the most powerful and meaningful client relationship (for both internal and external business) is a close, personalised, long term face to face relationship.

Challenges Today in Client Relationships

With today’s busy, interconnected and digital world, it is becoming more and more difficult to build and maintain close client relationships. Companies understand the importance of it and have gone to great efforts to enhance their relationships.

Why is it so difficult?

There are too many distractions and there is too much competition for both the companies and the clients.

People are not so loyal anymore as everything is a “click away.”

Many people are leery of the “gun slinging” salesperson looking for “the deal” to meet his numbers.

Companies are too focused internally and not focused on the client.

Companies are too short term focused and not medium to long term focused.

People have doubts and trust less due to the economic environment.

From Egyii’s research and experience, we see, through service driven economies and the need to introduce complex solutions to be competitive, that the most difficult relationships for businesses to attain are the relationships that drive intangible and complex sales and overall business.

So what is missing?

Solutions

In more complex or less tangible business scenarios, what do most people want? People want to be understood and treated like an individual- not as a number. They want that connection, association and involvement. They want help.

They want some sort of relationship.

To build your relationship you first need the tools to manage yourself – your own situation. We call this self management.

Once you can manage yourself, you can start to manage the relationship. We call this relationship management.

The combination of self management and relationship management tools, along your company’s tools (your sales process, marketing and unique product offerings) make for a powerful client relationship programme.

The Benefits of Well Executed, Long Term Client Relationships

The benefits are clear. With long term, solid client relationships you and the client benefit.  

For example:

You attain a more loyal client base. It is proven that loyal clients typically buy more products at higher margin, and they are easier to cross sell and up sell to.

Your operations costs are cut. As the client becomes more familiar with you and your business, less support is required.

It is easier for the client: peace of mind.

Your product and company look different- people become the differentiator.

You become more competitive through your biggest asset- your people.

The benefits of well executed, long term client relationships benefit all parties. It is a win-win scenario.

Understanding one’s self is the key to true knowledge. Aristotle

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore

Let’s simplify an overused, sometimes “overcomplicated” term: customer experience.

There are three important drivers of customer experience:

Technology: Technology is the IT systems in place to track and gather the data that is necessary to understand who the client is, the client satisfaction points, their history, Etc. This would be CRM systems, call centre operations and unified communications as examples. Often companies rely too much on this driver- it cannot stand alone.

Design: Design gives us the “look, smell & feel” of customer experience. We leave this to the web designers, interior and industrial designers who enhance the “click,” the bank lobbies and the Apple iPhones.

Connect: This is the interface to the customer and the most difficult of all three, as it involves direct contact with “fickle” humans and requires a behavioural change in the company delivering the experience, to be effective.

Both Technology and Design play an important role in Connect and without Connect, you lose  the overall customer experience.

Customer service, ease of use on the company’s website and face to face interactions are the heart and soul of Connect and customer experience. It is where most companies fail and where they should be focusing,

Overall, if you use Technology, Design and Connect you will deliver great customer experience, which  drives…

word of mouth marketing

loyalty

higher profits

…and more business.

Do or die.

Trip Allen, Team Egyii, Singapore