"I suggest that you stop being irrelevant to your customers and become a relevant supplier, and the faster you do it the better." I gave this suggestion to the CEO of a medium-sized packaging manufacturer for different types of solutions.
Where did this suggestion come from? To analyze in detail the dynamics that existed between this businessman and his clients, which I will describe below.
SITUATION
This company had 22 clients at the time of the intervention, of which only 5 represented 85% of its income. What's more, of those 22, 4 represented losses for him. And it's something I asked him to explain to me on different occasions. "For what reason do you have clients in your portfolio for so long that, if we take stock, they only report losses for your company, they don't pay you on time and, besides, they don't treat you well?" Although painful for him it was at the same time healthy to get rid of those 4 clients.
What we will focus our analysis on will be the type of relationship that this businessman had with his clients and the results that they obtained from this relationship.
The contacts I had with these were made up of the following aspects:
- the sales interview with the purchasing area, which closed the contract, the delivery of orders to the customer's premises, that is, the conversation between the truck driver and the police officer who received the merchandise, the communication that the purchasing area or production they had with him to claim non-compliance with the agreed satisfaction conditions or to negotiate an increase in the price
He could well have up to 10 years with the same client and the account status remained with slight increases in sales volume, but with the same quality in the relationship and with constant threats from the competition to remove him from the middle, via prices, which sometimes caused my client to only be able to negotiate and remain in the account for the exclusive management of this item, nothing more. That was the level of relationship she had with her clients. On the other hand, and due to the same thing, this businessman insisted that sales should be increased, VIA new customers. He insisted on mobilizing his sales force for this purpose and hired 4 new sellers (he subsequently unsubscribed 3) and started a strong prospecting campaign.
QUESTION
"What if instead of increasing your sales, by attracting new customers, you could do it by transforming the way you relate to your current customers?" I am not indicating that the search for new clients is put aside, but if we do not know how to satisfy the ones we have, the new ones will receive a similar treatment, so I proposed the design of a strategy to approach current clients and identify business opportunities. A new relationship domain had to be reinvented in such a way that from seeing the same customers with new eyes, new business opportunities and new levels of relationship could be opened. It was necessary to transform from "order pickers" to the development of strategic partnerships with customers.
NEW PRACTICES
If the relationship between this businessman and his clients was reduced to the contacts that his driver had with the police, and his representatives with the purchasing area only to negotiate price increases or to hear complaints, their status as order pickers was far from disappear. The first thing we implemented was to select those clients that he himself could visit in the following month. 10 were chosen. Having chosen them, a new way of interviewing them was designed, always thinking that now our objective was outside the shopping areas. We focus our batteries in the areas of marketing and sales. Why with them? To package, the product of this businessman was used, so it was essential to listen to both his sales plans, volumes,his problems and concerns and the launch of new products, thus, my client, would participate from the beginning and not in the end as "he places orders", another change for this businessman. On the other hand, he and his sales organization had to develop two new skills: that of asking and that of listening. Normally, he and his team spoke 90% of the time in interviews. One of the most notable characteristics of "order picking" is the enormous deafness it develops. If we were going to transform the relationship we had with customers, we had to keep our mouths shut and start asking questions and listening, and not just to shopping, but to other key areas that have to do with your product. To start listening and identifying your customers' concerns,We design a series of different questions for each of the clients and people you would visit.
This businessman "swore" that it would be difficult for him to obtain the interviews. It involved the mobilization of new sales practices, which did not correspond to who he had been so far, so he thought that by changing his way of being, he would "disturb" the relationship with the customer. His resistance had no reason to be since it is normal when a new identity begins to form, a new way of being.
LISTEN TO INNOVATE
By stopping talking and beginning to listen to your customers, you can not only innovate in product design, but your involvement in your customers' business would go from being an "order picker" to being a strategic partner. He would participate creatively in the sales processes of his clients. Most importantly, he was able to identify those new business opportunities he was looking for to increase his sales. He was surprised that his customers received him, that when he listened to those responsible for marketing and sales, he realized that shopping was something so, but so different. He had lost a lot of valuable information by limiting himself to a single client. He discovered that within the companies of his clients, it is worth the expression, he has many clients, not only one,and each one of them conceives in a different way what their company is. He saw something holistically that he was just looking at partially.
Needless to say, this allowed him to see service possibilities where he had not seen them before. It allowed her to innovate.
However, in this "Listen to all your customer, not just the shopping area" campaign, he received strong complaints, for late deliveries, a low-quality product that was often rejected, and complaints about his attitude of charging without import if the agreed satisfaction conditions had been fulfilled to the client.
RESULTS
From this experience of transforming his relationship with his current clients, from going from "placing orders" to building strategic partnerships with his clients, this businessman obtained the following results:
- As his perception of what had to be sales changed, he was able to immediately see new business opportunities, both for himself and for his clients. Always, new interpretations produce new possibilities, which were exploited.
In general terms, it recognizes that each of its clients has many clients in its different areas, not only the purchasing area, but can now identify other areas as crucial.
- With one of your clients, something happened that had not happened in your experience. He and the CEO of this company designed a new product. Both innovated the market and are having extraordinary results in sales of the same. They increased in 1 year 50% of the sales of their 5 most profitable customers, not only of the same product, but also opened sales for new products. most important aspects of this commercial innovation, is that this businessman was at the end of the sales line, that is, he simply "received the order from his clients", he currently participates from the gestation part of the product that his client plans to sell, so he is involved in such a way that automatically he receives the order, he takes out the competition,it positions itself in front of its clients in a different way, maintaining in a healthy way the sale that it traditionally made to these clients.
Your clients declare satisfaction.
These innovations in the way they sell have allowed them to approach new customers in different ways. He and his sales force no longer only talk about purchases, but include other areas in their sales process that will be affected by the purchase or not of their products. And of the most important aspects, is that they stopped talking, they began to listen and at that moment, they became strategic business partners, they stopped being "order pickers".
