The Question Mark in Sales

Peady’s Selling Engagement sponsored by IRD Prospector.

Welcome to this week’s post on sales and selling success.

I noticed recently that Amazon supremo Jeff Bezos forwards selected customer complaints and feedback to his senior managers with a single character “?” as the content – “Why Amazon Executives Dread the Question Mark Email”.

In the article Bezos said it was important for him to stay directly connected with customers because it was easy to fall into the trap of relying too heavily on data and metrics. “I’m actually a big fan of anecdotes in business” he said.“And the thing I have noticed is that when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right
Interesting. So, the head honcho at Amazon thinks it’s important to stay connected with customers?

How about your organisation, does your sales manager, sales director or general manager stay connected with your customers? And not just the big ones, the small and medium spenders too?

Customer contact by management

As the salesperson you are the primary contact person between the company and the customer however the value-add of a face to face visit by management can’t be underestimated.
I feel that it’s critically important that the person in charge not lose touch with the very people who help make their company a success. Making periodic customer visits is the best way to do that for a whole raft of reasons.

  • To show appreciation. Nothing beats a “thank you”
  • To gain invaluable feedback on the state of the relationship
  • To meet “peer to peer” with the customer’s senior managers
  • To share the company’s vision, values or future plans
  • To be proactive if there are problems (or potentialproblems)
  • To gain insight into the customer’s business and challenges

and one of the most important….

  • To see and observe the salesperson “in action” 

I just don’t get why many managers (including sales managers which is inexcusable) “don’t have time” to undertake customer visits. For what it’s worth I say make time!

Think about it this way. If a manager commits to seeing 4 customers on one day every week that’s somewhere around 200 over the year. Question – how connected to the market would that manager be if that happened?

Maybe Jeff Bezos is on the right track?

Until next week good selling!
 

About the author 

Stephen Pead is a media industry veteran of 30 years with significant experience in direct sales, sales management and general management. He is based in Sydney and specialises in helping SME’s market their businesses more effectively and providing training for salespeople and sales managers.

He can be contacted at [email protected]