Give Customers What They Are Starving For And Stand Miles Ahead Of The Competition

Do you know what five steps you can take immediately to give your clients peace of mind?

In this article, we’re going to talk about how your clients perceive you in terms of predictability and consistency.

Here are five questions to consider:

  1. Are your clients or prospects absolutely certain that you’re going to deliver on every commitment, every time, on time without fail?
  2. Can they be sure you’ll deliver within budget?
  3. How predictable and accountable are you in meeting your promises?
  4. How well do you follow through on issues and fulfilling obligations to clients?
  5. How consistent are you in your prospecting, selling and servicing efforts?

Of course, you’d like to believe that your customers’ responses to these types of questions would be very positive. However, the reality is that there is often a gap between the salesperson who says, “My customers think the world of me,” and the customer whose experience tells a different story.

In today’s competitive marketplace, customers and clients are starving for a salesperson they can count on to deliver predictable results and fulfill every promise they make. If you do nothing else other than that, you’re going to exceed most people’s performances.

Woody Allen was right many years ago when he said 80% of success is showing up. If you show up and you consistently deliver high quality, you’re really going to be able to be successful.

As basic and fundamental as this might appear on the surface, it is unfortunately a rare commodity. So rare, in fact, that if you do nothing more than show up on time, meet commitments, fulfill promises and deliver your product on time and within budget, you’re going to simply outperform most of your competition – it’s really that simple.

Being consistent is a matter of focus. Too often, salespeople focus on themselves. In this case, you can set yourself apart from the crowd by focusing on the customer. Every customer already faces a continuous flow of change, difficulty and challenges in their day-to-day existence. The last thing that they want from you is for your problem to become their problem. They don’t need to be saddled with your inability to deliver on promises due to things under — or even outside — of your control.

Five basic ways to build predictability and consistency for your clients:

  1. Be on time
  2. Meet all your commitments
  3. Fulfill all promises
  4. Deliver on time
  5. Deliver within budget

On the surface this looks disarmingly simple. But it’s not easy – that’s why so few people are actually able to do it. If you can master a few strategies in this area, you will put yourself head and shoulders above the crowd.

Here are five specific steps that you can implement immediately:

  1. Be careful not to overcommit your time, support or organizational capabilities. Promise a lot, and deliver more. Doing so will require harder work, better systems and more consistency.
  2. Manage your time and activities carefully. Don’t get caught in the activity trap. The only inventory a salesperson has is time, so you’re going to have to learn how to manage your priorities, manage yourself, and manage your time so that your activities take you to exactly what you promised you would deliver.
  3. Monitor all production and delivery schedules daily. Even if you’re in an environment where you turn the delivery and service over to someone else as soon as you complete the sale, it’s in your best interest to manage production and delivery. In your client’s mind, you are the organization – they only know your name and your face. If there’s a problem, it’s going to reflect badly on you, regardless of whose “fault” it really is. You have to be able to expedite things with the right people in your organization or you’re going to end up looking bad to your customer.
  4. Allow time for prospecting, selling, servicing and supporting customer commitments on a regular basis. Building specific time into your schedule for these activities on a regular basis will ensure that you don’t “drop any balls” even when you’re juggling multiple obligations.
  5. Maintain emotional equilibrium in the face of demands, difficulties and changing priorities. Like buying, selling is emotional. You have to be sure that you manage your problems and your negative emotions so that they don’t interfere with your ability to focus on your customers.

The benefits of consistency are obvious: you get a long-term relationship with your client and opportunities to sell more. You also build an outstanding reputation with a far greater chance of getting referrals. Ultimately, you remove the distrust that leads to resistance. Without resistance, the entire process of prospecting, selling and servicing becomes faster and easier. Consistency is quality and quality sells.

To be highly successful in sales, you only have to be 2-5% better than your competition. There’s not much competition if you’re predictable and consistent. Simply deliver what you promise — every time.