什么是更好的销售方式？关系销售。
In relationship selling, you form a deep relationship with your prospect, benefiting both of you in the long term. Instead of selling the product and never contacting them again, you stay in touch and give them personalized recommendations that help them improve the bottom line at their business.
They get to extract value, while you get to exceed quota.
In his bookRelationship Selling, Jim Cathart writes, “Relationship selling is a form of selling, not merely a type of relationship. The purpose of it is to help other people at a profit to you. When you are truly helping, you deserve to be well compensated for your product or service.”
In other words, relationship selling is all about being helpful — with the ultimate goal of providing value and retaining the customer, guaranteeing revenue down the line.
In this post, we’ll cover what relationship selling is, go over a few examples, and share a few top tips for nailing the relationship selling process.
What is relationship selling?
Relationship selling is a technique in which a sales rep prioritizes their connection with the customer over all other aspects of the sale. They develop trust — usually by adding value and spending a lot of time with prospects — before attempting to close.
In relationship selling, rapport-building between the rep and the buyer are emphasized more than the features or price of the offering. To build rapport, sales reps typically practice active listening to successfully uncover prospects’ needs and form a relationship.
HubSpot Research reportsthat a good portion of sales organizations use pre-written sales enablement materials such as email templates (53%) and call scripts (39%). If yours is one of those organizations, it couldn’t be more important to actively listen and tailor your pitch to develop a relationship.
In fact,70%of B2B customers expect in-depth personalization, making it a critically important facet of relationship-building.
If they feel like the experience isn’t personalized, prospects are unlikely to purchase an expensive product. They’ll feel like they’re only part of a transaction and not part of a mutually-beneficial relationship.
That’s why you’ll want to steer clear of transactional selling. It’s often quick and un-personalized, which is why it’s fallen out of favor at most B2B organizations.
Transactional Selling vs. Relationship Selling
A transactional sale is a quick exchange of a product or service for money that typically doesn't entail a personalized experience. Relationship selling, on the other hand, is effort- and research-intensive, and often involves personalization and familiarity.
Transactional selling works well for low-cost, commoditized products, where it doesn’t make sense for the rep to invest in getting to know their buyers. For example, the clothing and car industries partake in transactional selling.
Relationship selling is better for businesses where there’s a longsales cycle, and prospects need more touch points before making a purchasing decision. Overall, it’s good for high-cost situations and/or customized solutions, but those aren’t the only scenarios where it applies.
销售示例的关系
You might think of relationship selling as an enterprise B2B strategy, and that’s certainly not wrong. Any rep working a $50,000+ deal is probably using relationship selling techniques — think a salesperson forsales automation softwareor a customized HR app.
But relationship selling also applies to consumer products. How well do you know your tailor? If they’re smart, they’ll develop a personal relationship with you so your loyalty extends beyond their abilities. What about your favorite hotel? Many nice ones keep meticulous track of their guests’ preferences, enabling them to create personalized experiences for anyone who returns.
Here are a few more examples where businesses use relationship selling.
Enterprise SaaS Companies
企业SaaS提供商（例如HubSpot使用关系销售）出售其产品套件。在第一封外展电子邮件中，销售代表通常会要求快速通话，并且随着培养过程的进行，他们将链接发送到有用的材料并提供免费演示。
These companies use aCRMto keep their prospects’ information on hand. That way, sales reps don’t need to recall customer details from memory, and the relationship develops seamlessly week-after-week.
Healthcare Providers
医疗保健提供者使用关系销售，尽管其方式与B2B业务不同。通过保留您的医疗信息，他们可以根据您的需求来定制治疗方法。即使您由其他工作人员为您服务，每次访问期间您的经验仍然保持一致。
Subscription Services
在B2C空间中，诸如Spotify和Amazon Prime之类的订阅服务使用深层算法个性化来与用户建立关系。即使您不与销售人员交谈，该平台也会检查您的习惯，并为您提供所需的服务，以便您保持订阅。
Another example would be Google. How many of us use Google for the seamless integration between each of its apps and services? The search engine examines your behavior to deliver personalized content and search results across all of its products.
Local Businesses
Local businesses such as hair salons, coffee shops, bakeries, and tailors (as mentioned above) use relationship selling to keep you coming back. For instance, a hairstylist might remember your previous styling preferences and automatically create that style without you needing to tell them. They might also remember your name and details of your life to forge a personal connection.
The relationship selling process may look different depending on the industry, but no matter what, it’s composed of similar steps. Let’s take a look below.
Relationship Selling Process
- Provide value and insight in every email and phone call.
- Learn about your prospect’s challenges, objectives, and professional goals.
- Give advice that’s tailored to their business objectives.
- 解和同情你的前景的objections.
- 为潜在客户的异议找到双赢解决方案。
- Keep providing value after the closed-won deal.
1. Provide value and insight in every email and phone call.
To quickly gain credibility and establish yourself as a trusted advisor, the very first thing you should do is provide value and insight to your prospect. That might mean reaching out with some helpful suggestions, sending them links to relevant content, making a valuable introduction, or anything else that benefits them.
这样一来，您只是想从他们那里提取销售，您只是在帮助他们，培养这种关系就在大门之外。
2. Learn about your prospect’s challenges, objectives, and professional goals.
Once you’ve gotten their attention and proved you’re worth their time, dig into their business challenges, objectives, metrics, and qualifying characteristics, along with their personal and professional goals. This information helps you answer two critical questions:
- 您的产品可以帮助潜在客户吗？
- Do they have the ability to buy it (authority, budget, appropriate timeline, etc.)?
These two questions cover the basics ofsales qualification. Aside from ensuring the prospect is a good fit, it also helps you understand whether you can actually create a mutually beneficial relationship with them.
不要与任何不合适的人强迫销售。您也许可以说服他们购买，但请记住：销售关系是长期的。一旦您的客户得知自己被误导，他们就会感到不高兴，您将面临取消和/或退货，而不是发光的评论，推荐和升级和交叉销售.
3. Give advice that’s tailored to their business objectives.
Combine your new knowledge of the buyer with your subject-matter expertise to deliver your suggestions. For example, you might prescribe a strategy that’ll address one of their corepain points(and happens to align with your product).
Back up your recommendations with examples of customers who have been in similar situations. To give you an idea, you might say,
“客户y是另一家拥有[X Space]数量bob全站app的员工的公司，正面临类似的问题。我建议他们这样做。“
4.解和同情你的前景的objections.
Surfacing and solving your prospect’s blocking points is a necessary part of any sales process. But relationship selling calls for a careful approach. You never want to steamroll your client — that’s guaranteed to turn them against you. Instead, give them ample time to explain themselves. Be patient. And above all, answer honestly.
If they have a genuine reason to be concerned, don’t ignore that. Your truthfulness will be more reassuring than a glib response (and will hold up after they get their hands on the product).
To identify the buyer’s worries, ask questions like:
- “Is there anything stopping you from buying?"
- “What are you anxious about?"
- “What do you wish was different about the product?"
Once they’ve answered, say:
“To make sure we’re on the same page, here’s what I got from that: [Paraphrase their objection]. Is that right? Did I miss anything?"
This proves you’re paying attention and truly care. Then show empathy with something along the lines of,“I hear what you’re saying, and that completely makes sense. Can I ask a few follow-up questions?"
挖掘潜在客户的反对意见，以确保您完全理解。
Finally, it’s time to respond. Don’t be combative — you and your prospect are on the same team.
5. Find a win-win solution to the prospect’s objections.
Many salespeople treat the negotiation like a zero-sum game. In other words, if the buyer wins, they lose, and vice versa. This mentality erodes trust and forces your negotiation partner to act selfishly. Plus, if they walk away feeling like you’ve taken advantage of them, your long-term relationship is doomed.
The solution? Act like a win for your prospect is a win for you. Together, you’re trying to find the best possible outcome.
To successfully respond to the prospect’s objections, come prepared with several concessions you’re willing to make (like extra implementation help, better payment terms, the option to call you at any time for help, and so on). Proactively extending these compromises will show your prospect you’re on their side and make them likelier to extend concessions of their own.
6. Keep providing value after the closed-won deal.
不从客户的生命就消失s they sign the contract — unless you want them to assume you’re only interested in their checkbook and not their success.
Look for reasons to reach out every few months or every quarter, such as:
- 他们感兴趣的电子书，文章，播客或其他资源
- A company event you’d like to invite them to
- A LinkedIn Pulse or blog post you’d like to feature them in
- A follow up to see how they like the product and if they have any questions or concerns
- A "Congrats!" on a recent company or personal accomplishment
- “节日快乐”笔记
住在一个雷达加深关系d increases the likelihood they’ll stay a customer. And if they’re a big account, you may want to go even further:
- Take them out to dinner or a fun outing
- Schedule a yearly, biannual, or quarterly account review
- Send them tickets to a local performance
- Invite them to tour your office
- Coordinate a meeting between one of their executives and yours
那么，如何在销售中建立关系？
The main principle underpinning relationship selling is simple: Always think about the long-term impact of your actions. Here are several ways you can incorporate relationship selling techniques into your sales process.
1. Be honest with your customers at all times.
Dishonesty is kryptonite to business relationships. Make sure you’re never misleading your customers, either by giving them false information or withholding crucial details. You’ll earn their respect by telling them something isn’t right before they find out for themselves.
2.一贯与您的联系人和客户签到。
Be a continued presence for your clients. Interact with them on social media, send them value-added emails, and pay attention to the details of their personal lives so you can ask about their kids, past-times, goals, etc.
3.超出您的联系人的期望。
如果您想确保某人的忠诚度，请超越他们的期望。为了给您一个想法，也许您告诉您的联系人，您会为他们的年度行业活动提供门票。而且您做到了 - 但是除了门票外，您还与您知道他们仰望的扬声器安排了一个私人见面会。
4.Follow-through on your commitments.
尽力满足每个到期日和承诺。也许您说您会在星期五之前发送一封电子邮件将它们连接到您的联系人。下午6点而且您知道他们直到周日早上才检查收件箱 - 但这并不意味着您可以等待。每当您保持诺言时，您都会增强您的信任度。
5. Provide exclusive perks.
让您的客户感觉良好。告诉他们您感谢他们的业务，询问您可以做什么以使他们开心，给他们折扣，并在可能的话上寄给他们。每个人都喜欢像他们一样受到对待。
Relationship Selling is the Better Way to Sell
销售是一次性活动，但恋爱关系持续了很长时间。通过这些技术，您将与客户建立关系，使您可以在不牺牲这种关系的情况下交叉销售和销售。结果，您将带来更多的收入，超过配额，并成为销售团队中表现最好的人。
编者注：该帖子最初于2017年12月发表，并已更新以进行全面性。
