The streets surrounding our dry cleaner have been under construction for at least six months. It’s a maze of ripped up roadways and dump trucks to make the trip only to find their parking lot is barricaded, too. It’s a mess. There are probably four other dry cleaners in the area, and it would be easy to switch. Let’s face it, pricing and quality are usually equal in the laundry business. But I don’t switch. I make the trek to my dry cleaner because the owners have created a friendship with me.
No other reason – that’s it. I know they’re going through a hard time, and I want to show up every two weeks letting them know that they have my loyalty … because they made a relationship happen.
The role of business relationships has changed significantly over the past 20 years or so. Technology, decision-making committees, and social media have diluted the necessity of personal relationships. Competence and value are now the requirements to win sales.
Many sales methodologies today preach that relationships are no longer needed to win sales and relationship-salespeople are failing. I agree. Most self-proclaimed relationship-salespeople are failing today because the salespeople who usually claim this description aren’t very good at the “competence and value” stuff. I also agree that relationships are not needed today … until they are.
Don’t buy into the hype … creating trusting relationships with your customers and partners is an extremely helpful skill to becoming excellent at sales. It’s no longer a requirement to reach your quota like it used to be, but if you want to be one of the great ones, you better learn how to make friends.
Competence is the fee for admission, but relationships will get you the box seats. Or, when the game gets rained out, they’ll keep you from getting soaked – just like I’m trying to do for my dry cleaner.
