Someone asked me this week what makes a great customer culture in sales in b2b. Here’s my thoughts
The fun thing about a culture is that it comprises many elements, not one thing. And it can be designed, the major point being not how great anyone element but how aligned are the elements. People go round great places and come away saying I don’t see why they’re so wonderful – often they are not stunning in one sense – but you will find by careful observation that everything is congruent ie every element of the culture, processes and behaviours, supports every other element. I can take you thro this in more detail if it helps
My favourite customer culture in direct sales from personal experience has a couple of points to look for:
- The sales guys talk to the engineers all the time so they have a reality, an edge. They discover arguments to make, what not to sell, who to sell to, how to sell easily. They love the support staff and work with them to help customers
- Everything they say is relevant to the customer – they listen and they think before speaking
- They have a huge pride in who they work with and therefore the company. They respect their leaders for doing common sense things that work.
- They ruthlessly kick out any dumb things, however small, and won’t stand for them
- The sales processes drive sales not paperwork
- Sales feels like helping customers get what they want, because you can have faith it’ll get delivered properly and on time
My favourite sales culture by story was a telco who instigated a very simple strategy. Its based on the “Find X” slide. Sales went up 35%. You can see how the customer is baked into the very simplicity of it
- Every customer who buys, feels great at the point of purchase, feels great about their purchase and tells all their friends. At that point in time they think we’re brilliant – so how do we keep them at that high emotional point?
- By getting them to buy more
- How can we get them to buy more?
- Simply ask them what they want to buy next, when it would be and how they would like us to get in touch
- Just simply doing what they said – they’re blown away that anyone would do remember let alone keep a promise
Food for thought. Give me a call or email if you want to share ideas
