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How to Create Sales Relationships
A sales relationship primarily involves solving certain problems for your clients in exchange for them paying your fees. And your primary function in sales relationships is to solve client problems. In this article, I will focus on this function as a direct and effective method to initiate new sales relationships. Many commonly used marketing and advertising methods fail to generate sales relationships because they ignore or do not focus sufficiently on solving client problems. For example, advertising your service, experience and expertise does not typically solve a client problem. This is a major reason why many advertisements fail to generate much response. Listing how you intend to solve client problems in an ad may be more effective but it still only promises to resolve their concerns, but does not actually do it. The closer your "sales relationship action" comes to actually solving a given client problem the more it will motivate client responses and sales. I will spend the rest of the article listing ways that you can appreciate and utilize this marketing strategy to create and maintain client relationships. Here they are: 1. KNOW WHAT PROBLEMS YOU WANT TO SOLVE First, you need to decide what problem(s) you want to solve for your clients. This is important to give you clarity and focus. You do not need to resolve many different types of client concerns. But you do need to solve one or a few kinds of problems for them in a proficient and consistent manner. Please have pen and paper ready. Ask yourself this question: "What problems do I really want to solve for my clients?" List a maximum of four answers. Review the list of answers you created and circle the answers that are especially important for you to do. Remember you are going to have to work hard to figure out and solve these problems, time and again. Make sure you circle only the ones that you are willing to work on and solve no matter what it takes. This kind of hard work will be necessary on your part, especially at the beginning, to initiate sales relationships. Therefore, you must choose a type of work for which you have a lot of energy. 2. BECOME YOUR OWN CLIENT Now that you know what problems you want to solve, you need to do it. However, your inner critic may have become alarmed by now telling you things like, "You can't do it!", "It won't work!", "They will reject you!" etc. If that happens to you, your inner critic could block your marketing efforts and chances of bringing in new clients. To deal with this and get past your inner critic you need to answer his/her objections and convince him/her that you can and should do this. One of the best ways to achieve this is by making your inner critic a regular client of yours. This means you need to go to work on solving the same problems for your self that you are going to be solving for other people. For example, let's say that you have decided you will focus on solving people's real estate problems by helping them find and buy properties. In this case, you will need to solve your own real estate problems and meet your related needs on a regular basis. Therefore, if you own a condominium now but would like to buy a large house, you would work regularly on achieving this goal. In the process you may research the market, establish financing sources, show yourself some suitable properties, make plans, etc. You should keep working on this and make your self more and more satisfied about your real estate concerns. As you solve these problems for your self, your inner critic will become less and less vocal and eventually stop criticizing your marketing efforts. In addition, you will feel more and more empowered, confident, and free to go out there and initiate sales relationships. 3. KNOW WHO YOU WANT TO WORK WITH Now you know what problems you want to solve both for your self and for your clients. Next, I would like you to determine who you want to serve and with whom you want to establish client relationships. Please make a list of a maximum of four types of people, groups, or organizations you really want to work with as your clients or employers. While there may be many people you may be willing to work with, we want to determine here the one or few client groups whose problems you are especially interested in solving. 4. HELP SOLVE THEIR PROBLEMS Your next step is to provide specialized information on a regular basis to help potential clients. You probably have this information already and will develop a lot more in the process of helping your self as described in section 2 above. You need to determine the most efficient ways that you are willing to provide this information or service to as many people as possible on a regular basis. This help is to be provided free of charge to your clients as a way to initiate your part of the client relationship, which is helping solve a specific problem for them. There are many ways you can do this. For example, as a relationship coach, I write and submit relationship enhancement articles to various sources online on a weekly basis. This provides information to help people solve relationship problems. However, it also begins a client relationship for people who are interested in employing my services. You can do the same by writing and submitting informative articles on your topics. In addition, you may choose other ways to help solve potential client problems. For example, you can offer free speaking engagements, give teleclasses, write letters take on a small client project free, etc. All these are effective and often inexpensive ways to attract new clients. And most of these methods do not encounter a lot of rejection since people usually accept information that is useful and relevant for them. 5. OFFER YOUR PAID SERVICES Along with your free services, you should inform people about what you offer for pay. For examples if you submit an article on your topic to an E-zine, you would include your contact information in the signature file at the bottom of the article. This typically includes, your name, title, specialty services, years of experience, contact info, website, etc., stated briefly in 6 lines or less. If you were giving a free speech, you would give people your business cards and brochures, etc. Next you would move on to create or offer this service to another potential client. As you apply this marketing strategy, giving desired clients, information they need, you will begin to receive inquiries about your paid services. I suggest you utilize the inquiry session time giving your clients more relevant information and devote only a part of it to arranging for the payment of your fees. Using these methods you will gradually establish yourself as a knowledgeable professional in your field, which will bring more and more clients for your business. Kaveh Nayeri is a Relationship Coach and Author with 18 years of related experience. Kaveh guides love relationships away from pain toward healing, love, and peace. Kaveh can be reached at 858-459- 8695 for phone coaching. Visit http://www.loveyoursoul.com for a complete listing of coaching services and teleclasses. Kaveh can also be reached by email at KNayeri@msn.com
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