Focus On Your Customer, Not Your Sales Goals

If you’re in sales and reading this you know this scene well….It is the last week of the month, you are $15,000 below your sales goal, if you do not hit it you will either not earn a commission check or have a reduced one, you make a plan to double your activity, calling every client in your pipeline, multiple times, you make cold calls with abundance offering one time deals that expire, and on and on.

There is a dirty little secret in the world of your prospects…your customer knows you are in sales and they could care less about you meeting your goal. Customers care about their goals and initiatives along with meeting their customers expectations. Now, before I get messages about sales goals are important to increasing revenue, etc. I am not saying you shouldn’t care about meeting your sales goals, I am saying you should shift your focus from your personal interest to your customers. If you show up in service of your customer, they will feel that, know that and trust you. You must set yourself apart from the hundreds of sales reps that call on them on a weekly basis.

#1 Customers can smell desperation like a cheap perfume.

If you show up pushing your products and services thinking only about the sale, you will not win the long game and you most likely will not win the short one either. The common theme I noticed when in the lows early in my career, I was desperate and aggressive. Sure, I closed a few sales, but it wasn’t until I stilled the freak out in my mind, took a deep breath and showed up in front of my customer caring only about them that I changed my trajectory from sales hell to sales heaven.

#2 What’s in it for you is not what’s in it for your customer.

You care about your products and services and that is why you are in business. Your customer cares about their business goals and the problems you can solve for them. They care about you bringing insights into their business that they had not previously thought of. If you meet your customer where they are and show them where you, along with your product or service can take them, you will win with your customer, develop a strong partnership and set yourself apart from your competition. Remember, do not operate in your odds are, operate in the best interest of your customer.

#3 Don’t be afraid to walk away when necessary.

There have been many times I have walked away from business. These reasons can vary but mostly in my career it was for one of two reasons, the customer only cared about the cheapest price, not the value I brought. The second, is the product or service I represented did not align with the customers need. Let’s take the first scenario, if you win on price you will always lose it on price. If you are offering a fair market rate for the value and quality that you bring to the table and your customer does not care, you need to walk away. This will save you from bringing in business that is not profitable and from undervaluing your business. In the second scenario, there are times when through the process of meeting with your customers you will discover that what your customers’ needs are, are not in your company’s wheelhouse. This is not a happy realization when it happens but believe me, you will gain more business from customers by focusing on what you are good at versus closing business and not delivering. Always, preserve the current and future business over the immediate need for revenue. If you cannot show up the way the customer expects and needs you to respectfully opt out of the project or deal. Subscribe to the old adage, “Under promise and over deliver”. If you can’t do that, walk away and come back when you can.