How well is this approach working for him? Bet he gets slapped a lot. This post is about a natural and more effective way to build relationships.
Remember back to when you first started courting? You knew what you wanted, but somehow you learned not to just blurt it out upon meeting someone. You took a little time. You got to know each other first. You found common areas of interest you could relate to.
With time and repeated contacts; in person, on the phone, in notes and letters; the relationship began to grow. Eventually, the relationship reached a point where you could talk about those things that seemed too abrupt in the beginning, without much discomfort on either of your parts at all.
But for some strange reason, when it comes to business and selling, we tend to forget everything we learned about building relationships naturally and comfortably. Instead we behave as if some different kind of relationship building process applies.
We throw out our names, proclaim how terrific we are, then immediately ask our prospects to, in effect, marry us. Sort of like that cartoon above.
We ignore all we've learned about relationship building from our families, friendships and work relationships. In it's place we substitute overly aggressive, impersonal and egocentric behaviors, then wonder what went wrong.
No wonder sales people deal with so much rejection!
Business relationships are really no different from any other human relationships. They all have to be built the same way. The most effective lead generation and sales communications are designed to facilitate the following five natural relationship building elements.
The Five Natural Relationship Building Elements
1. Make Contact
You must make contact with a person, or there is no chance for a relationship to build. Invariably, more than one contact is needed. Miller and Heiman in their classic sales training book entitled, "Strategic Selling" conducted national surveys to determine that successful sales people typically sell after their fifth contact with a prospect. They further observed that since ninety percent of all sales people give up after the first contact, it turns out that only 10% of the sales people in America generate 90% of all the sales.
Contacts can be made on the phone, on the Web, in email, in letters, in brochures, at public meetings, in seminars, in small groups or one on one. Generally, a combination of contact types is desirable. Remember, you had coffee, and then a movie, then lots of alone time before you felt comfortable talking about marriage.
When planning your marketing communications keep this need for an escalating series of contacts in mind. If you make each contact easy to say yes to, you'll find it easier and more natural to move your prospects along toward the client-hood.
2. Discover Mutual Interest
Remember this initial courting scenario? Initially there was a rapid series of questions along the lines of:
- Where are you from?
- Where did you go to school?
- What do you do for a living?
- What are your hobbies?
- Who do you know that I know?
- Seen any good movies lately?
- Heard any good music lately?
- What's your favorite restaurant?
That exchange was all about finding mutual interests. If you found them, the relationship escalated. If you failed to find them, relationship building stopped.
In business, just because you can have contact with someone doesn't mean you'll be able to develop a relationship. There must also be recognition of mutual interests.
When someone perceives that they really need or want what you've got, they'll naturally grow closer to you. When you perceive that someone really is a good fit for what you're selling, you'll naturally grow closer to them.
To speed up this mutuality phenomenon learn to discover needs and share solutions more quickly and effectively.
3. Establish Credibility
Even though you may have sufficient contact and perceived mutuality, these alone are still not enough to build a relationship. Buyers and Sellers come into contact with realtors all the time; but if they think the realtor is a bozo, they're still not going to do business.
The annual NAR Buyer and Seller Profiles repeatedly show that the number one agent selection criterion is "knowledge" about every aspect of real estate. Buyers and Sellers, more than anything else, want to believe that their agent really knows what she or he is doing in real estate.
Since knowledge is the number one selection criteria, and credibility is one of the key, natural relationship building elements; it only makes sense to have the majority of your marketing communications be about demonstrating your real estate knowledge.
4. Deepen Confidence
Contact, mutuality and credibility alone are still not enough to build relationships. Buyers and Sellers connect with agents all the time who know what they're doing, but are flaky as croissants; so they still won't do business with them.
How can you demonstrate that you are worthy of confidence? There are two main ways:
- Be responsive: Return calls and emails quickly.
- Make lots of promises, and keep them: "I'll find out and call you back." Then do it quickly. "I'll get that information for you." Then send it, quickly.
People are always watching you perform. Set high standards for yourself, and meet them. Then watch people's confidence in you grow.
5. Build Trust
Trust is the natural result of multiple contacts, discovered mutual interest, established credibility and deepened confidence. To build trust, all your marketing and sales communications must seamlessly support the advancement of the previous four relationship building elements.
How much trust do real estate agents need? Well, the amount of trust required to do business is affected by three key factors:
- Purchase Price - The higher the price, the more trust is needed. Since home purchases are typically the most expensive things most people ever buy; agents need more trust in this regard than any other sales person.
- Complexity - The more complex the buying decision is, the more trust is required to do business. Real estate transactions are pretty much the most complex transactions that people get into. So the trust bar is at the top here too.
- Impact - The higher the impact of the transaction, the more trust is required. Since buying and selling homes involved moving, shelter and happiness of both Buyers/Sellers and their families; the trust bar on this issue is just about as high as it gets.
You are not selling widgets at retail. You are in the major leagues of selling. You need more and deeper relationships to be successful, than sales people in most other fields.
The winners in this game know that it's all about starting, building and maintaining relationships; and that doing it naturally works much better than, "Hi! Will you marry me?"
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