Relationship Selling

Relationship Selling - What Is It?

In this series of articles, I'm going to discuss something that a lot of people don't get. It's called relationship selling. Quite honestly, the reasons they don't get it are many. A lot of it has to do with conditioning and a lot of it has to do with misconceptions. Actually, there is a very fine line between those two things because many misconceptions actually come from conditioning. Hopefully, after reading this series, you'll have a solid understanding of just what relationship selling is.

When I first started marketing online, there was a phrase that really bothered me. Actually, it was more like a saying. It went like this. "It's just a numbers game." I asked what that meant and the general answer I got was that for every so many people you approach about an opportunity, only so many of them will say yes. I couldn't understand this. Why would that be? If something was really good, wouldn't a large number of people want to have it? And as I started seeing the way people went about their business, I finally started to get it. Marketers were looking at prospects as just that, prospects. They didn't see them as people with feelings. They were just that, numbers.

I then started asking myself questions. Do I want to be thought of as just a number? Don't I care what people think of me as a person? Don't I want them to see that I have feelings and needs? I mean for crying out loud, what has this world come to? Have we really been reduced to walking into a fast food joint, asking for the value mean of the day and being told to move down the line like we were cattle? Boy, wouldn't it be nice if people would take the time out to say, "Have a nice day" and really mean it.

So when I started to actually market online, I said to myself that I wouldn't just be a cog in an assembly line. I was going to try the personal approach. Now mind you, I really didn't know what relationship selling was at the time. I just knew that I didn't want to treat my prospects like just a number. As a started to study the art of relationship selling, I realized that it was more than just saying "Have a nice day." Relationship selling is a very complex process involving a number of techniques.

You will have to master many things in order to master the are of relationship selling. Some of these things you will learn quickly and some of them will take quite some time and practice. You would like to think that being able to relate to somebody would come naturally. Unfortunately, because of our conditioning and misconceptions, along with the fast pace of the world we live in, we have a hard time relating to this concept. Hopefully, by the time this whole series is over, relationship selling will be second nature to you.

Relationship Selling - Being The Expert

In this installment of relationship selling, we're going to discuss what it means to be the expert for your prospect. This is the first step in relationship selling and an important one. If you don't establish yourself as an expert, then it becomes very difficult to convince your prospect that you can solve the problem that they are currently having. This article will show you how to be that expert and why it's important. Hopefully, after reading this, you'll know how to become the expert in YOUR niche.

In order to understand the importance of being the expert for your prospect, put yourself in your prospect's shoes. Let's say that you want to get a new guitar, or even your first guitar. You want to get one that you know you're going to enjoy playing for a very long time. So you go to a music store and ask to speak to a salesman. How are you going to feel if you ask the salesman what guitar you should get and his answer is, "Oh, they're all the same"? Are you really going to believe that? Will you look at that person as an expert in his field.

Now, let's take the same person who goes to that music store but gets another salesman who says, "Well, if you want to get more enjoyment out of your guitar, get one that costs a little more." And then he explains to you the difference between the more expensive guitars and the cheaper ones. He points out how cheaper guitars don't have as good an action and go out of tune faster. He goes over every detail. Aren't you going to look at him as an expert in his field? Aren't you going to take his advice? Who are you going to buy from, the person who told you the guitars are all the same, or the person who explains what the differences are?

With relationship selling, sometimes this is the whole ball game. Now, the trick is to convince somebody that you are indeed an expert and know what you are talking about. How do you do this? The answer is not one that you are going to like. You have to actually BE that expert. You have to know what you are talking about. This means that you have to know your field. You have to study it constantly. You have to know all the changes that are going on in it. If somebody asks you a question, you have to come up with an immediate answer. Any hesitation on your part, any hint that you had to think about your answer, and you've put doubt in the prospect's mind.

But this is only part of being an expert. The other part is showing your prospect the confidence that you have in what you are saying. You have to be so sure of yourself that it appears effortless in the way you come up with answers. The more confidence you show, the more impressed, but more importantly, at ease the prospect will be with taking your advice.

There is no shortcut around this process. You MUST know what you are talking about. If you don't, trust me, your prospect will know it.

Relationship Selling - Gaining Their Trust

In this installment of relationship selling, we're going to cover the topic of gaining your prospect's trust. This may be the most difficult part of this process because of the climate of Internet marketing today. In this article, we're going to discuss some ways that we can gain that trust and then once we do, how to keep it. Hopefully, after reading this, you'll be able to gain the trust of even the most jaded person on the planet.

A little background on why gaining trust is so important and so difficult. The Internet has been a playground for one scam after another. The number of people who have been ripped off by these scams total in the millions. As a result, most marketers are very leery about trusting anybody online when it comes to getting involved in an Internet business. That is why gaining trust is so hard. So, the question is, how do we do it?

The process starts with the prospect, believe it or not. Why? Most prospects will come right out and tell you, "Look, I've been burned many times already. Why should I believe YOU?" So there you have it. You're already on the defensive. Now, there are a number of ways to handle this depending on your level of success.

If you are very successful, then you probably have a number of testimonials to back up what you say, not that testimonials are enough for everybody. Some will think they are faked. This is where you have to refer them to real people who they can talk to. If you frequent forums, and have a reputation at these forums, suggest to the prospect that they visit the forum and ask around about you. Let the prospect find out on his own that you are a trustworthy person. It will actually be better for you if some people have something negative to say. It makes you sound more human.

Another thing you can do is ask the person how you can prove your honesty to them. This puts the onus back on them and in a way puts them on the defensive without making them feel defensive. They're going to ask you for something. It could be something reasonable or something totally off the wall. If it's reasonable and you can do it easily, then do it. It may not totally gain their trust but it will be a step in the right direction. If it's something that is not reasonable, make a counter offer. Explain to them that what they are asking for is just not possible. Make them a counter offer and see what they say.

The truth is, most people when you ask them what you can do for them, will take that as it is and simply tell you that they just want to know that they can trust your help. Assure them that they can. Most people will accept that.

Once you've have gotten their trust, the next step is keeping it. To do this, you simply give them all the content and assistance that you promised. Explain to them that any time they have a question that they can contact you. Be there for them. Truly give them the help they're expecting. You'll be surprised at the reputation you'll build.

Relationship Selling - Targeting

In our final installment of relationship selling, we're going to cover the final piece of the overall puzzle, targeting. Please understand that these few articles are not all there is to relationship selling. Books have been written on the subject. There's a whole thing about personality types and how to deal with them. But for our purposes, targeting will round out our discussion. Hopefully, after reading this article, you will know just how to target a prospect and how to know when to cut your loses.

That last line may sound a little strange to you, so let me clarify. Not everybody is a prospect. Think about it. If you are selling a cure for baldness in men, are women going to be in your target market? What if you were selling hot rod autos? It is quite unlikely that a person in their 70s is going to be interested in driving a hot rod. Okay, not everybody is a prospect when buying products.

And not everybody is a prospect when selling an income opportunity. Not everybody wants to make money on the Internet. And even for some who do, not all of them want to make it a full time career. Some want to just make a few bucks on the side. So, if you're pitching a program that is going to make somebody a six figure income, not everybody is going to be interested. Conversely, if you're pitching a program that is specifically designed to just make a few extra bucks each month, the people who are looking for residual income that they can retire off of will not be interested in what you have to offer.

So the question becomes, how do you know if somebody is a prospect or not? This answer may come off as being a wise one, but it's not. It's the way you do it. How? You ask them. That's right, you ask them. The rub is HOW you go about doing that. You don't come out and say, "Are you a prospect?" For one thing, they're going to look at you like you had two heads. No, you have to be a little more subtle than that.

I'm a very straight forward person. What I do is simply ask somebody what it is that they're looking for. I ask them what they want out of an online business. I ask them what they want to earn. I ask them to tell me about their interests and their skills. I get as much information about them as I can. I really show my interest in THEM. Finally, after they have answered all my questions, I evaluate the answers and make a determination, based on those answers, as to whether or not I think the person is a prospect. Am I always right? Well, in the cases of the ones where I think they are and it turns out they do nothing, it's easy to know the answer to that. But for the ones I let go, there is no way to tell. You just have to make your best educated guess based on the evidence. Just don't try to recruit everybody because some people will be very obvious as to where they fall in the equation.

Is this an exact science? No, it's not. But if you go about the process in just this manner and make an educated guess, you're going to be right more times than you're going to be wrong.

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