Communication is key to business success, especially in a relationship based business like direct sales. Effective communication will help you establish, grow, and maintain a customer base and a productive direct sales team.
Today’s savvy customers are looking to get the best products and services for their money. They have loads of information at their fingertips and can easily research companies and products. Your ability to communicate how you can meet their needs will determine whether or not they make that first purchase, and you must keep communicating to retain them as customers.
This is the first post in a short series about communicating in which we’ll talk about some of the many components of communication, and provide tips for effectively communicating with your customers and prospects.
Thinking about communication most likely brings to mind all the methods you use to provide information about your business and market it to customers and potential team members. But one of the first things to keep in mind when communicating is this:
Listen!
Sometimes the best way to reach out to people is simply by listening to them. Customers and prospects will never be shy about expressing their needs and concerns. But often we spend so much time developing our information delivery strategy that we forget to really listed to what our customers have to say. It’s also important to remember that customer relationships are dynamic and needs and wants change.
Of course it’s important to follow a well developed sales and marketing approach, but an essential part of that strategy should involve regularly listening to what customers and prospects have to say. Good listening skills not only allow you to collect valuable information necessary to assist them and answer their needs, but it also demonstrates sensitivity and understanding.
~ Larry Wilson and Spencer Johnson, authors of
The One Minute Salesperson
Listening sets the tone for the rest of your communication. It will direct your efforts. By actively listening you’ll know the best way to communicate. Whether face-to-face or through email or phone, listening skills will foster the next steps in customer and team relations. This can not only help you fine tune your sales and marketing techniques, but it will also help to create long term relationships and increase visibility, referrals and market share.
Taking the time to improve listening skills and really paying attention to what customers and prospects are saying will improve customers satisfaction and team productivity. Perhaps we’d all be better communicators if we practiced what Greek philosopher Epictetus noted, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
Next in the series (later this week):
Email Etiquette
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We all have relationships in our lives, whether with our mates, our parents, our brothers or our friends. While each relationship is unique, each of their relationships have a common thread. That thread is the Law of Attraction.