Become A F.I.L.T.E.R. For Your Customers

I sell B2B.

When you do that for a living, you have to establish, build upon and maintain a relationship with your customers.

If you’d like to do that faster, easier and more often, you need F.I.L.T.E.R. information for your customers and make their lives easier.

Find Out What They Want To Know

Take notice of what I said - what they want to know, not what you think they need to know.

Passing along verbal communication that’s unwanted is the same as email SPAM.

How do you find out what they want to keep abreast of ? Simply ask and ye shall be told.

Inform Them About The Issues In Your Industry

The three I’s, as I call them, when I tell my suppliers what I want to know about - The issues in my industry.

Merger’s, supply issues, personnel, etc. Gimme all you got and don’t wait 2 or 3 days to tell me. It’ll take you 30 seconds on the phone, so do not hesitate and call me before you call anybody else.

Does it always happen that way ? Of course not, but it doesn’t hurt to ask

Learn How They Want To Consume The Info

Do they want a phone call, a voicemail or email ?

Do they listen to podcasts, read blogs, watch video’s ?

Ask, then deliver. This is selling, not rocket science.

Turn Around Their Thinking

Believe it or not, there are some rather large organizations out there that are on the wrong track.

Some are being run by idiots, some by family members that shouldn’t be there, some by ass kissers that shouldn’t be in charge.

Deal with it, drop them as a customer or change jobs.

If you choose to deal with them, you’ll have to find a way to turn their thinking around, so your sales can grow along with them.

Establish A Step-By-Step Methodology

Some of my best customers were so disorganized when I found them that I had to help them create a process internally that would allow them to take advantage of what I could do to help them lower costs, make bigger profits and more sales for me.

The upside is most of them will be my customers for life.

The downside is a few thought they were now a lot smarter than they really are and are trying out my competitors.

Always try to make the process as proprietary as it can be. Those that got too big for their britches will be back, but I’ll never recoup those lost sales.

Remove Obstacles They Keep Them From Buying More From You

In a former sales life, the company I worked for had a receptionist that made it difficult for my customers to get to my customer service personnel.

It took a few months, but after I finally proved it to my CEO, he removed her and sales went up 30% the next month.

There are circumstances in every company’s existence that do this.

It’s your job to find ‘em, fix ‘em or remove ‘em.

If you can’t or the company won’t, don’t waste time, trust me here, move on with your sales life as quick as you can.

There you have it - F.I.L.T.E.R. = more sales.

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