“It’s the Relationship Stupid”

December 30, 2012 Customer Relations Comments Off on “It’s the Relationship Stupid”

Growing Your Business In Tough Times: It’s the Relationship!

Remember the Clinton campaign slogan “It’s the Economy Stupid”?  Well if all the rules of selling have changed, and they have, maybe a good slogan for today’s sales people is “It’s the Relationship Stupid”.

This may seem too simple.  Many people look at analysis like this and say things like “it can’t be that simple” but we think it is just that simple.  Developing relationships in depth with the key people in the decision making chain, we believe, is the single most important function of the successful, professional sales person.

The simple part is stating the goal, “developing close relationships with all the key people in the decision making chain”.  Doing it is not easy.  It takes focus, planning, decision making and the execution of a well thought out plan and constant follow up.  The objective is to penetrate the target, develop relationships and sell.  It’s surgical!

If your targets know, in depth, that you can be counted on as one of their own and in some cases better than one of their own you will be successful.

So at the risk of being insulting: “It’s the Relationship Stupid” is not a bad way of thinking about what we can do to deal with the new rules in sales.