Are your customer relationships an asset or an obstacle?

by Dave Kahle

Positive customer relationships are the basis of much B2B business, right? Positive business relationships ensure us an audience with the customer, make every step of the selling process go easier, and even provide us with a competitive edge. It’s not unusual for the business to come your way just because they like you the best.

     But in today’s hyper-competitive economy, relying on your relationships is like trying to paddle through the storm in a leaky rowboat – your effort will keep you afloat for a short time, but eventually, you’ll find that you just don’t have enough resources to challenge the storm. Relying on your relationships is a prescription for eventual failure.

     Here’s why. The world is full of B2B salespeople who have built a solid business relationship with a segment of their customer base. They then rely on those relationships to support them.

     In doing that, they have missed the opportunity to develop their sales skills. “I have great relationships with my customers,” they think. “I don’t need to learn to sell well.” And, for years, that was somewhat true.

Now, however, they are paying the price of that position. Many of their customers are seeing their businesses decline.

     The relationships that so many salespeople counted on to support them are no longer as profitable as they once were. And, since they never spent the time and effort to improve themselves, they find themselves woefully unequipped to gain new customers, to create demand for their new products, or to persuasively gain bigger chunks of their customer’s business

     Their boat is sinking, and they never gained the skills necessary to keep it afloat. The vast majority of B2B salespeople have never been trained in the principles, practices, and processes that are the best way to do their jobs.

Great Sales Managers Create Great Sales Teams

Alas, very few sales managers know what it takes to become great.  They have never been exposed to the best practices of great sales management.

We can fix that.  Our Kahle Way® Sales Management System has transformed thousands of sales managers, enriched thousands of sales people, and spearheaded the growth of countless companies,.

“This system puts into concrete form all of the processes, tools and techniques I sensed were lacking in our sales management. I can’t wait to put them into action on Monday!”

– Pat O’Donnell, Noble Gas Solutions

For years, we taught it in a live seminar.  Now, we’ve made it available in a on-line course, complemented with live Zoom meetings.

Not only are they paying the price of never developing their sales competencies, they now find themselves restricted by those very relationships that were, just a few years ago, their meal tickets.

     Here’s how this works. A salesperson develops a set of relationships and then settles into a routine of seeing those people on a regular basis. Those customers come to rely on him, and their purchasing patterns revolve around those regular visits. As long as they order in a sufficient quantity, life is good.

     But now, those same customers aren’t filling the coffers like they used to. And the salespeople find themselves boxed in. They have created expectations in their customers, and those expectations now prevent them from investing time in developing more lucrative relationships. How can they call on someone else, when doing so would mean that they can’t see their buddies as often? That would jeopardize their current relationships. And, besides, they just aren’t comfortable cold calling on prospects because they haven’t done that in years.

     So, their reliance on relationships has caused them to neglect the development of their own competency and built the walls around their comfort zones so high as to be almost insurmountable. Faced with the demands of the new economy, they find themselves woefully under-equipped as salespeople, and fearful of striking out of their comfort zones. Unsure what to do as they see their boat steadily sinking, they default to bailing even faster and hope the storm goes away.

What to do – if you are a salesperson ... CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE