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Building Strong Business Relationships
By: Rhonda LeGrand, MAS, Beacon Promotions, Inc.
Issue: 2006feb

Now is the time to start building the groundwork for your selling success. The more effort you put into the process in the beginning, the stronger and more solid your foundation. Our economy is so competitive that building strong and lasting customer relationships is more critical than ever because relationships are very important for your sales career.

SEGMENTING CUSTOMER BASE
Start laying the groundwork of your plan by segmenting your customer base by common characteristics. This helps you develop a plan for your sales approach by customer and allows for leveraging the common characteristics you identify among them. Here are some ways to do this:

Geographic Location
Study your customer base and map out the current and potential customers in your geographic location. Plan how frequently you will contact these customers via personal visits, calls, snail mail or e-mail communication.

Demographic Characteristics
What is the composition of your customer base, including the number of employees, industries served, type of business and annual sales volume? Knowing this about your customers helps you solve their problems. Develop a client profile sheet to record this information. (E-mail me at rlegrand@beaconpromotions.com for a copy of the Client Profile Sheet I use.) Include basic information about their businesses as well as personal data such as hobbies and interests.

Standard Industry Classification (SIC)
Segmenting by industry allows you to become better educated on the issues and concerns facing those specific industries, helps you develop solutions and builds your foundation because certain products and ideas lend themselves to specific industries.

TOOLS FOR BUILDING
With your foundation in place, it is time to start building and taking your sales to the next level by using some of these tools in your sales process

Recognize the four basic personality styles.
There are four basic personality styles—Analytical, Expressive, Amiable and Driver—and approximately 25 percent of the population falls into each style. Many articles have been written to define the dominant characteristics of each one. Remember, 75 percent of the population probably has a personality different from yours—you have to adapt to their motivations and needs. The point here is to be as versatile as you can with customers because they seldom see things the way you do.

Build trust.
Develop trust by understanding personality styles and making customers comfortable dealing with you. Nobody wants to be “sold.” It must be a win/win situation for both parties. Some say as much as 40 percent of the sales process is building a trusting relationship with the customer.

Make sure they know what you have to offer.
Remind them every time you talk with or see them. Everyone has information overload and can forget what you have to offer. Don’t leave money on the table. It’s always easier to do more business with fewer customers, which gives you more time to spend on those accounts.

Understand their decision-making processes.
Know who makes buying decisions and the timeline for making them. This will keep you in front of the right people at the right time.

Review accounts periodically.
Evaluate accounts and identify them as high potential or high maintenance, and spend your time accordingly. It’s hard, but necessary, to occasionally “fire” accounts that are always difficult to work with or that don’t pay their bills on time.

NOW YOU’VE REACHED THE TOP
You have laid your solid foundation and started the building process to take you to the top of the sales pyramid. To be successful in sales, you must build trusting relationships with prospects to turn them into customers. Even though people leave companies, relationships remain—thus, customers often follow salespeople.

Follow-up is key to getting repeat orders and additional sales from customers. You must find out what happened to lost orders. Was a different product chosen? Did the specs change? Keep records of follow-up information for future quotes or conversations with customers.

Take time to thank your customers for their orders and let them know how much you appreciate their business. Leave behind a product with your name and number on it, so they will always have it handy for their next order.

Stay in touch with your customers so they will remember you when they have additional product needs. Educate them through newsletters, case histories and monthly contacts. Put valuable information on your website so they know what you offer.

Instead of always trying to sell them something, ask, “What can I help you with today?” PPB


Rhonda LeGrand, who is based in Rockport, Texas, serves as vice president of sales for and is a partner in supplier Beacon Promotions, Inc. (UPIC: BEACONP) in New Ulm, Minnesota. She has more than 20 years’ experience in the promotional products industry and may be reached at rlegrand@beaconpromotions.com.


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