Here’s an example. Fifteen years ago, I needed to hold a small meeting with about eight of my customers. I rented a small conference room for a couple hours in a local hotel. No meals or rooms involved. Just a small conference room. I think it cost $25.00. It was probably the smallest sale that the meetings department of that hotel could make. Two days after the
meeting, I received a phone call from the salesperson who rented the room to me.
“Was everything satisfactory?” she wanted to know. “Was the room clean, the temperature OK?”
I was so impressed by the fact that she cared enough to call that I recommended that hotel consistently and used it for every local meeting I held for the next 15 years.
The ROF call is powerful for one more, very specific and tangible reason. It often produces additional opportunities. At the end of this very specific sales call, you ask for other opportunities.
Here’s how you do it. After you have delivered what they purchased from you, then call them for an appointment. When you are one-on-one with them, first ask about their satisfaction with what they bought. At this point, either of one or two things will happen. They will indicate they are satisfied, or they weren’t. If they weren’t, you need to apologize and do whatever you can to
fix it. It’s good that you found out right now, before it has a chance to fester and spread to other potential customers.
If they are satisfied, great. Confirm it. Then ask them what other opportunities they have for you and your service or product in the near future. If they indicate something, good for you, you have an additional opportunity to work on. (You have ‘found out what they want’ again) If they don’t, it’s OK.
But you are not done yet. Now, you want to probe for external opportunities. These are potential relationships and opportunities for you outside of the confines of this customer’s reach. Does he know other people to whom he can refer you? In a large organization, it could be other departments or plants. In a smaller one, it could be business colleagues. For an individual, it could be friends and neighbors.
If they provide you with a name or two, you now have a short cut into an engagement with a “right person”. And you are back at the start of the sales process with someone else. Since you have a recommendation from a trusted reference, you are entering that engagement with an advantage.
So, you have made an ROF call and wrung additional value out of the transaction. But what if they have no near-term additional opportunities? How do you develop a positive business relationship with this customer when there is no reasonable expectation of additional business in the short term?
Think in terms of “top of mind awareness.” Known in the advertising world as TOMA. TOMA means that you work to keep your name, or your company’s name, or your products, on the customer’s mind, so that, when the time comes for him to buy again, he thinks first of you.
Now, think in terms of “touches.” Touches are light, non-intensive communications from or about you to your customers that spotlight your name and keep you at the top of their minds.
Now, put those two concepts together – TOMA touches. That’s the answer to the question, “How do you develop a positive business relationship with this customer when there is no reasonable expectation of near-term business?”
TOMA touches are all around us. When you receive that birthday card from your life insurance agent, that’s a TOMA touch. When you receive that quarterly newsletter from the realtor who helped you buy or sell your last home, that’s a TOMA touch. Those emails from that investment newsletter you signed up for. A TOMA touch. That calendar that was mailed to you by people from whom you
buy your auto insurance? A TOMA touch.
Notice that they all have some common elements. They are personal, addressed to you by name. They carry the name and contact information of the seller. They reflect positively on him/her. And they are light and non-intrusive.
In the B2B world, TOMA touches can be creative. They can range from a fun exhibit at the trade show or convention, to the gift basket delivered at Christmas.
Anything you can do to make your touch stand out and get noticed will be worthwhile. For example, in my world, where all my client’s vendors send Christmas cards, I send Thanksgiving cards. (Now don’t everybody go out and do this!) Instead of being buried in the pack of Christmas cards, because mine is unusual, it stands out.
For years I called on hospitals. It was a common practice for many of the vendors to bring in Christmas gift baskets. I arranged with my wife, who is a gourmet cook, to create a large variety of home-made cookies and candies. We’d package them in disposable water carafes and bed pans, wrap them in colored cellophane, and take them to my customers. Believe me, everyone else’s gift basket
looked like a third string bench player compared to my superstar TOMA touch.
The possibilities for TOMA touches are endless. Think in terms of all the electronic communications possible: Twitter, LinkedIn, email, etc. Then think about hard-copy touches, like calendars, imprinted pens, self-stick note pads with your name on them, etc. There are entire catalogs brimming over with these kinds of possibilities. Don’t forget personalized birthday and holiday
cards.
Explore more extensive and expensive possibilities as well. Remember my bed pans packed with home-made candies and cookies. Consider, if it is appropriate for your business, joining organizations to which your customers belong. The trade associations, Rotary clubs, etc. all provide you an opportunity to keep your name at the top of their mind by mingling with them live and in
person.
