I recently interviewed several college-aged kids asking them what caused them to follow or like brands on social media and one of the consistent threads I heard was something to the effect of “I want to feel like a person not a number.”
This is hard in the world of business and social media because you are trying to appeal to a large audience and depending on how big you are, you can’t possibly make everything personal to each customer.
However, I was thinking about this in relation to sales. B2B sales specifically. I think sometimes people can get into the mindset that since it’s dealing with a bigger business that they want only professionalism and not to get personal at all. Something to remember though is that behind every company are real people. People that still like personalization. Usually.
What does this look like?
The first thing is obvious to anyone who actually tries to do his job well in a sales role:
Look for companies problems, don’t just try and sell your product.
Trying to sell a product to a company even if it’s not what they need is why salespeople get a bad name. Be honest about your product. Believe in it enough to know when it’s needed and when it’s not. If the company truly doesn’t need it you are just going to make life harder for the customer and your company.
Sell to those who will truly profit from your product. To do this, it might require some extra work whether before or during the call, but the customers that you do make through this are going to be the customers that keep coming back for more.
Know the company and the person you’re talking to.
If you won a million dollars and wanted to give it away to somebody and you called a random guy to do it, he would probably hang up on you. Why? Because he doesn’t want a million dollars? No. Because he doesn’t understand that you have his best interest in mind and not only your own. He thinks it’s a scam. A quote I like is “People don’t care that you know until they know that you care.”
If you called up someone you know a little about and after mentioning some personal things you offered the million dollars, it would probably still be met with skepticism, but now that you have their attention from what you know about them, now they’re interested. If all of this is true for giving money away, surely trying to sell a product needs at least as much personalization.
Start out talking about them and you’ll be amazed at how the conversation can evolve into a sale.
Don’t interrupt the customer on the phone.
Just stop it. Sometimes we get excited that someone is interested or has a similar mindset, but by interrupting them, you are showing that you don’t care. Whether you meant to or not, that’s what they feel like. Instead of interrupting them, write down what they say that excites you on a little note and bring it up 5 minutes later in the conversation. This will allow you to listen in the moment and also prove to them that you were listening before to what they said.
Listening to customers is a huge part of the sales verse.
Just because you’re talking to businesses doesn’t mean you can’t make your calls personal. Treat people like people and see how they go out of their way to help you!