Baatein baatein aur baatein....Communication

What is the most important thing in sales???

Sales comprises of communication and convincing and yes both are equally important.

Convencing follows communication so communication by-default tops the charts.

In todays fast paced world everyone wants everything quick. The mind-set of the salespeople has also gone down the same line. Based on my observation of dealing and training people in sales over a period of time, especially millenials in the recent years, has proved the same all the time.

While training, I tell them that the first step should be rapport building, be it a face to face communication, a telephonic conversation or through the digital medium. The customer connect is vital.

While in digital medium a -

Dear Rahul,

Hope your are doing good and we would like to make life even more beautiful.

Can be a good start.

In a face to face communication and a telephonic conversation it may involve exchange of few basic courtesies and trying to know the customer as well through some right questions.

The problem with everyone around is they, say they don't have time. They are in a constant hurry to reach everywhere. Once the destination is reached then again the rush to get somewhere else.

Neither the customer wants to wait and listen nor the salesperson wants to elaborate. Now both are a problem for the organization. 

If I am a customer and I buy into something with half the conversation assuming I have already searched for all the information on internet, I may lose out onto vital information which maybe beneficial for me or maybe knowing my specific need the salesperson may guide me to something not known to me.

But then customer is King and hence it has to be the salesperson who has to come up with ways to win hearts.

If I am a salesperson and I am in a hurry then I'll never be able to explain all the features to the customer, which may eventually lead to him not coming back.

More dangerous than this is the attitude of the salesperson when they think that the customer doesn't wants to listen so how can we go in depth and elaborate. Now this becomes a bottleneck in empowering the front-line as well. 

Sales is dependent on the front-line. The front-line has to have knowledge, expertise and salse sense. But all this often makes the salesperson complacent and reluctant to communicate, to break the ice and move closer to the person. At times the salesperson forgets that it is not just a deal for him that he is dealing but a "person" - with knowledge, expertise and feelings.

For a sales to conclude with the customer being Happy with the dealing it has to be a two-way-communication.

What matters in any interaction is, careful communication. Ask the right questions to know the customer and be willing to listen sans judgement. It automatically fuels two-way-communication.

Being a marketing person and looking and training the front-end sales closely I have found the business that we lose is often because of lack of rapport building between the employee and the end customer. 

Yes, times have changed what earlier used to be the first 10-minutes of the conversation, is now the first 3-minutes of the conversation, but still it is vital.

The most important thing is to incorporate need, interest and excitement towards not the product or service first but to "oneself".  A cold attitude always disassociates and distances people.

I will urge everyone be it the customer or salesperson, start communicating. The more we talk, the better we understand each other and better equip ourselves with valid information.

Now here comes the catch, how do we know we have made proper communication? Or was it too long  to actually ruining the relationship?So this is what I am going to talk about in next post in the series.