by Paul Cherry
In my experience, salespeople often overestimate the quality of these relationships. They assume that if the customer has been buying from them for a long time, hasn’t voiced any complaints, and continues to place orders, then the relationship is fundamentally solid. Then, boom—the rug gets pulled out from under them. Without warning, the buyer announces that they’re looking at other vendors to save money (or, even worse, that they’ve already decided to switch). Or the company is being acquired, or a key contact has been replaced, and the new bosses have their own preferred vendors. Or suddenly the buyer lays out a long list of concerns about shipments, delays, quality, lack of new ideas, poor responsiveness, or whatever.
Salespeople often feel betrayed and blindsided, but in most cases they’ve created the situation. They failed to be proactive about the status of the relationship. Either they were too afraid to ask, or they assumed that the customer would raise any concerns in a fair and timely manner.
But look at it from the customer’s perspective: It’s not their job to work on your relationship. Like everyone, they want to avoid conflict and drama. Or they worry that if they give you a heads up that they’re looking at other vendors, you won’t give them their money’s worth.
If you wait for your customers to determine the status of your relationship, you risk hearing about it after they have taken their business elsewhere. Instead, be proactive and monitor your customers by asking them these questions:
•What is it that you value most about doing business with us [me]?
•In what ways are we [am I] helping you to achieve your goals?
•How can we create more value for you and your organization?
•In what ways can we [I] improve?
•What changes do we [I] need to make to ensure greater success?
•If you could change one thing about our relationship, what would it be?
•What goals would you like to see us [me] accomplish with you in the next twelve months?
•Would you be willing to serve as a reference for my product or company? If so, can you elaborate on what you would say about us? If not, why not?
•What will it take on our [my] part to win the business you are giving to our competition?
Many salespeople avoid these kinds of questions. Why? Because they are afraid of the answers. After all, what if customers respond that they are not satisfied? What if they want faster turnarounds, greater discounts, and higher quality? How do you respond?
You respond with gratitude and a desire to meet those requests by asking for things in return.
What if your customer wants better pricing? You get him to commit to purchasing greater volume. If your customer wants faster turnaround, price those projects at a premium so that they get the extra attention, commitment, and support that the customer values. Relationships are always two-sided, so do not be afraid to ask what you can do to enhance the relationship while asking for something in return.
What if you already know your service or quality is poor? Then there is no need to ask these questions. Instead, fix the problem first, then ask whether the fix was successful. (If you fail to ask, your competition will surely do it for you!)
Questions to Elevate the Relationship
Even if your customer relationship is solid, can you make it better?
About once or twice a year, I enjoy taking my important clients to lunch or dinner so we can reflect on our recent accomplishments working together. My other objective is to explore how our business relationship can improve and how I can add more value in the months (or year) ahead. These questions are asked in a relaxed atmosphere and when there’s time to talk about the big picture.
Here are some questions you can ask in such a setting. Keep in mind that these aren’t “selling” questions in the classic sense. The tone should be one of celebrating shared successes. Be sure to put them into your own words so the questions are conversational. And of course, continue with lots of follow-up questions:
•What do you feel we are/I am doing right to sustain our business relationship?
•What could we be doing differently (more of/less of . . . or where can we improve) in order to ensure that you achieve your upcoming goals?
•What’s the most important thing you’d like us to know so that we can stay aligned with your objectives?
•If we could do one thing to enhance our business relationship, what might that be?
•Are we doing anything that makes your job harder? And what can we be doing to make your job easier? More rewarding? To make your company more profitable? To make you more successful?
•If a prospective customer were to ask you to explain why you do business with us, how would you respond?
It may seem risky to open up a conversation with a buyer about where you could be doing a better job. For example, the buyer says, “We really like your quality. But one area we think you could improve is your on-site support.”
Your first reaction might be to think you’ve just stirred up a hornet’s nest. Now you’ll have to give up more margin and deliver more resources to keep the customer happy. I don’t see it that way at all. The customer has just told you that they want something more. Why assume that they’re not willing to give anything in return? Maybe they’ll pay more, or commit to giving you more business. A relationship is two-sided. So you might reply:
“We can absolutely give you more on-site support. Let me give that some thought, and I’ll put together a proposal that will address your needs.”
CHAPTER
18
Accountability Questions
Hold Buyers’ Feet to the Fire—and Have Them Love You for It
BUYERS DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY from sellers. They expect you to honor your word, deliver what you promised, disclose any potential drawbacks to your product, warn you about problems, and generally tell the truth.
Salespeople often don’t hold buyers to the same standard. “The customer is always right,” they think. “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” They assume that as long as buyers sign the check, we have no right to expect anything further from them.
I disagree.
For one thing, buyers aren’t giving you money out of charity or the goodness of their hearts. They’re getting something of value in exchange. In a healthy business relationship, both sides have the right, and obligation, to set expectations for the other party.
Even more important, buyers need you to establish mutual expectations—what you’re going to be accountable for and what you expect the buyer to be accountable for.
Smart buyers will insist on this clarity for a very simple reason: They don’t want to fail.
Let’s say you’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to lose weight using diet books, a gym membership, or some kind of fitness app. Now you’ve decided to join Weight Watchers or a similar program.
You’ve taken this step—and plunked down a good bit of money—for one reason: accountability. These programs share accountability with you. Yes, they promise to do certain things. But the reason they’re successful—and why you’re willing to pay a premium for their services—is because they hold you accountable. They’re designed in a way that doesn’t let you off the hook.
You make your goals public to your peers and family. You go every week to get weighed in, in front of everyone. The scale doesn’t lie, and your weight is recorded. If you start to slip, you expect someone to call and say, “Hey, we haven’t seen you. Where have you been?”
And if you tell them, well, you’ve been busy at work and there were some family parties, and you’ve been under a lot of stress, what do you want them to say? “No problem. Take your time. We’ll keep taking money out of your checking account, so whenever you’re ready to come back, feel free to do so”?
No. You want them to keep you on track to success. You want them to ignore your excuses and say, “We expect to see you this Wednesday at six. Will you commit to that?”
You’re fine with a little tough love, becau
se you know that both of you share the same goal. In the long run, the only way they win is if their clients actually lose weight. So for their own selfish reasons, they want to see you win.
It’s the same idea when you hire a personal trainer at the gym. You don’t want somebody to coddle you. You don’t want to hear, “I can’t believe how well you’re doing” when both of you know you haven’t made any progress. You’re paying for results, so you want them to challenge you—lift more weight, do more reps, run faster, work harder.
That’s what your buyers want, too. They’re not buying a friend. They’re not buying a cheerleading section. They’re buying success. And they want—in fact, demand—that you help them get there. Part of your job is to make sure they do their job. Salespeople can absolutely push their customers if they truly have their customers’ best interests at heart.
I’ve seen many salespeople who put relationships ahead of success. Their company tells them to meet with the customer every month, so they “stop by” to see how things are going or call the customer to “check in.” They shoot the breeze a bit, ask a few cursory questions, perhaps pick up the tab for lunch. But they don’t do anything to ensure success—which means that these time-consuming and sometimes expensive encounters create no value for the seller or the buyer.
If you’re selling complex, long time-frame solutions, that approach courts disaster. There’s a lot that can go wrong if you don’t stay on top of things. And when the chips are down, I’ve yet to meet a buyer who says, “No worries. Even though we failed, let’s do more business.” They may candidly admit that they dropped the ball. They may even apologize. But you’re done.
I worked with one company that sells an IT cloud solution for recruitment and hiring. It’s a powerful and useful product—if people actually use it.
In most cases, things start out great. The salesperson helps the client set up the platform and create some recruiting campaigns.
Over the next three to six months, one of two things happens: either the client is doing a really good job, or never gets around to using it. The contract is for twelve months, and if a client isn’t actively using the program by then, you can be sure they won’t be renewing the program.
I listened to some client calls. All of them were some variation of the “it’s-not-you-it’s-me” speech that every brokenhearted teenager has heard: “Oh, we’ve been really busy.” “We lost a couple of key employees.” “Well, we’re having a lot of success with our other programs and we’re concerned using your platform may now be a distraction.” “Oh, my job changed; I don’t know who’s in charge of that now.” “I tried it a while ago and couldn’t figure it out; I meant to call you, but . . .”.
Are the excuses valid? Maybe. But don’t they sound a lot like all those reasons you didn’t go to your Weight Watchers meeting?
If you want that renewal, or the next order, or simply a satisfied customer, you have to be willing to make the buyer a bit uncomfortable. You need to be polite and positive, of course. But you need to hold them accountable.
Yet I was seeing that some salespeople in this organization shied away from frank talk. They wanted the client to feel good. They didn’t want to “pressure” the client. So they did nothing and hoped things would get better. Or, sometimes, they tried to do the buyer’s job for them—for example, by setting up campaigns in the program that the client would never use. We all know how that story ends.
The successful salespeople, on the other hand, were picking up on these issues early and addressing them while they were still manageable. Think again of the Weight Watchers example. If you’ve only missed a week or two, it’s relatively easy to get back on track. But if you haven’t been to a meeting in three months, you’re probably gone for good. Psychologically, you’ve moved on.
So the successful salespeople were intervening early—nudging, reminding, coaching, and holding the client accountable to get moving. Did these clients feel pressured? A little, perhaps. But did they resent the salesperson? Not at all. They wanted to be pressured, because they wanted the program to succeed. Otherwise, they know they’ll find themselves a year later having to explain to someone at their company why they paid all that money for something that didn’t work.
So in this case, the most successful salespeople were the ones who set clear goals and expectations from Day One. Typically, the conversations would go something like this:
Salesperson: So let’s set a target. How many new customer-service reps will you need to hire this year?
Client: Given our growth targets and attrition rates, we’ll need about two hundred.
Salesperson: So to get two hundred good hires, you’ll need about one thousand candidates—or a target of eighty-three a month. Does that sound right?
Client: Yes.
Salesperson: Okay, then we need to get started right away. Let me help you set up your first campaign. And let me give you a checklist of things you’ll need to do over the next four weeks. . . .
A month later, to the day, the salesperson is calling that client to see how they’re doing against that short-term goal. Are they on track, ahead of goal, or behind? If they’re behind, why? What does the client need to do to close the gap? What’s working and what isn’t? For example:
Salesperson: Okay, Kate, I can see that you’ve only generated fifty applications this month. That’s lower than we’d like to see, so let’s review what happened and see if we can get it back on track. Let’s go through the checklist. Were you able to connect your system with all of the recruiting sites?
Client: Well, no. I connected with two, but I had problems connecting with the other two.
Salesperson: Okay, I’ll help you get that done today. Let’s move on to Item Two. . . .
As they work through the checklist, the salesperson reminds Kate that he’s asking these questions because he wants to see her achieve her recruitment goals. He reminds her of what Kate told him at the outset: that hitting those goals is critical to the company’s expansion strategy.
And he ends by getting specific commitments: “Excellent, so you’ll get that new campaign started by next Wednesday? That’s terrific. Let’s schedule a call on Friday to review the initial results. How’s that sound? Terrific! I’m excited to see you moving forward.”
Customer accountability is a must with the sales training I do. As we wrap up each day’s session, I ask everyone to stand and think of the one thing that was most valuable and how they will commit to putting it in practice. It’s a powerful exercise for managers to observe the takeaway from the sessions and to hear everyone’s commitment.
But let’s face it: Without follow-up, progress reports, and some attaboy coaching to keep everyone motivated, those commitments will soon be forgotten. That’s why we have thirty-day-after conference calls where everyone has to report about a client they called on, the concept from the training they put into practice, the outcome of the call, and what we can learn from this person’s actions.
It takes about sixty seconds per person, but it’s one of the most valuable things we do. Ninety-four percent of participants have great success stories. Why? Because the follow-up meetings create accountability and follow-through. People know they have to report a success story in thirty days, so they are actively practicing the concept we taught.
It’s exhilarating to witness these great results. But frankly, it’s also disappointing because sales management should be holding the team accountable. There are times when I have to have some very frank talks with managers. I don’t hesitate to say, “You need to step it up, get away from your desk and out with your team. You need to listen to their sales calls, ride along on their customer visits, monitor what they’re doing, coach and reinforce these behaviors.”
Guess what happens? Nearly always, the sales managers agree. And as a result, they get the outcomes they wanted—and paid for. Everybody wins.
Questions to ask
Here are questions you can use to set and manage exp
ectations at the beginning:
•Let’s make sure the goals you’ve set are exactly what you’re looking to achieve and by when.
•Take me through the action steps between now and _______ to ensure you are on target with your goals.
•Challenges are going to get in the way; that’s a fact of life. Let’s discuss what might be some issues that could surface and how you plan to manage them and not get distracted if they do.
•At the same time, there should be some good opportunities to take advantage of that could help you accelerate your progress toward your goals. Let’s talk about what those opportunities could be and how you can focus your time and effort to make them happen.
Here are some ongoing questions to ask as you work through a project or implementation:
•Let’s review your progress to date. Let’s go back to what we originally agreed to. Where you are you now in relation to your goals? What’s working well for you? What’s not? Let’s not get discouraged; let’s first focus on what you’ve been able to do so far.
•Where do you see hurdles? What are some things you’ve tried so far to address these hurdles?
•What do you have in mind moving forward? Where can I assist you to keep things moving in the right direction?
•Let’s focus on [a short-term objective] between now and ______. If I commit to do ______, then you’ll commit to do ______. How’s that sound?
•I’m excited to see us getting some new energy going to ensure you achieve the results you’re looking for. Now do me a favor: If anything should surface that I need to know about before our next scheduled conversation, you’ll let me know? Terrific.
As a salesperson, you can’t just expect to close a sale and wash your hands. When you stay engaged and create shared accountabilities, your clients are more likely to achieve the results they were originally looking for. And they’ll give you a large share of the credit for their success. They’ll happily give you referrals and testimonials—and put you at the top of their preferred-vendor list.