“How you relate with each person throughout your day will improve and increase the rate at which your business relationships and your business dealings are profitable and derive results and outcomes.” – Meshell Baker in today’s Tip 1314
How do you establish strong relationships in your business?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Meshell Baker is back with her first 2 part tip. Here’s one half of a giant dose of goodness:
Meshell Baker: Hello and welcome to part one of two of Relating versus Transacting. I’m going to give you ten tips of how to establish strong relationships in business. And today I’ll start with four.
First, I want to talk about transacting or transactions or examples of exchange of goods and services between parties. And our relationship is establishing and building connection between two parties. And we know in business, the stronger and the more vast your relationships, the easing the speed at which you can close deals and also establish a strong pipeline.
And just starting with one. Remember, it is a relationship business, not a transaction business, but a relationship business. I know there’s lots of technologies, there’s lots of efficiencies, there’s lots of tools and systems and apps that will help you, and AI that will help you at the speed and efficiency of what you do business. And the bottom line is there are people at the end of these transactions. And even if you are, for example, an SDR and you’re setting appointments for your BDR, your AE, you are still in relationship with the next person who is part of the cycle of that business transaction. So how you relate with each person throughout your day will improve and increase the rate at which your business relationships and your business dealings are profitable and derive results and outcomes. So begin to understand and think about the people that you’re doing business with and the relating of them.
So number two is listening. So now you’ve thought about these people that you’re working with at the end of these transactions. Listen to them. Many times people are so frustrated because they’re saying, “No one’s hearing me. No one’s hearing you.” That could be a source of frustration. I challenge you if you believe that no one’s listening to you, begin to listen to other people. Whatever it is you desire and want most in life, you must learn to give it. It seems counterintuitive and almost utterly ridiculous to hear someone say, “Yes, you want to be hurt, so now you need to listen. You want to be loved, so now you need to love. You want to be appreciated, so now you need to learn to appreciate others.” It is absolutely true. There is nothing more true in life than for you to receive. You must first learn how to give. So being a good listener, rule of thumb is if you’re, the person who’s speaking the most, is the one being sold, so that’s not the person listening. Listen twice as much as you speak. Learn to ask follow-up questions. Learn to dive deeper into what other people are saying. And everything you’re attempting to solve, acquire or game will be at the end of your ability to ask better questions. It makes you also a great solutions orienter or a creative catalyst or a go-to person when you listen, which will increase the impact and speed of your business.
Set expectations. So what that means is as you’re speaking with people and people are just almost already always listening when they come into a conversation, they already know the outcome. They’re talking and taking a beat, a pause to actually delineate and determine what is this conversation about. Why are we meeting? What are the desired outcomes we’d like to have after having spoken about something that’s relating to the business at hand. Then you go into the conversation. You will be pleasantly surprised how much more efficient and how much faster things get done. When you start setting expectations at the beginning of a conversation. Even if you’re a seller, telling the person on the other end of the phone, clearly setting up the expectation at the end of this call, I’d like to be able to schedule something. If this is a fit for you, I’d like to be able to offer you a product or service if this is a fit for you, right? Having that expectation allows the other party listening to be more engaged and it lets them know that you are setting up an environment of conversation and communication where you’re actually actively listening to them because this is the goal. The expectation you’ve set up is that I’ll be able to deliver this at the end of this conversation. Also, helps you with contingency plans. When you set expectations for people, they already know what the desired outcome is. So when you’re not able to hit that, you can quickly go in and assess and tell people, Hey, this is what I determined and I hope that be able to do. However, in light of ABCD, whatever that is 123 things have changed. Would you be willing to or I need an extended time if you had not set up expectations and you’re telling people you’re going to be late and you’re not going to keep your word if you just told them this is what I’m going to do at the end of the conversation, right? And then now you can’t do it, it really does lead people to feel like there’s some dishonesty, some disingenuousness around that conversation. However, if you set it up at the beginning, at the end you reconfirm, you thank them and you let them know I’ll keep in contact and communication with you. And then when something goes awry or goes off-kilter and you come back in and tell them, well, this person has built a trusting relationship with you and they’re more likely to be adjustable, doesn’t mean that they will always be agreeable. It will more likely be available to you because you’ve been clear from the beginning.
Number four. Create a culture of confidence. Confidence is vitally, vitally important. What that means is that your client, the other person that you’re relating was in business. Remember, this could be the client, the prospect, your supervisor, your colleague, the person you’re working with to make the deals. The confidence is that they feel like they can approach you. That is you creating a culture that you are approachable. People are not scared to tell you that something is off, something didn’t happen. They can’t deliver. Because you have been transparent. You have been authentic. You have been vulnerable. Creating that environment where you keep people to destroy the lines and you talk about people and you complain about people, that tells other people that you are not someone who wants to hear bad news. However, when you are letting people see that the unplanned, the unexpected, inconvenience, uncertainty is a way of life, and that you’re able to adapt and deal with it no matter what comes your way, well, guess what? You are someone people will quickly go to and confident that they can support and get support from you and to help get assistance from you so that they can make certain that deals close and things happen in a timely manner. That is the culture that you want to create.
So that’s one to four. I will see you next week for six to ten. Have a great day Selling!
Scott Ingram: For more from Meshell, first make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s exciting conclusion of this series. You’re also going to want to click over to DailySales.Tips/1314, so you can get connected with Meshell. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!