The easiest way to get sales in any business is to be seen as the leader in your industry.  To do that, you have to stand out from your competitors.  The best way that you can stand out from your competitors is to position yourself as a business partner, always looking for ways to improve your client’s business.  Never assume that they’ve already thought of or tried your idea, and always be on the cutting edge besides.

Help Your Customer’s Business
When you deal with a business person, you can be sure of one thing: that person thinks about her business day and night. It is very close to her. It is dear to her heart. And if you come in and talk to her and ask pertinent questions about the business, looking for ways to help her run her business better, the customer is going to warm up to you and want to be associated with you and your company.

Differentiate Yourself from Your Competitors
As a partner, you should always be looking to help your customer to cut costs and improve results in his or her area of responsibility. You should look for ways to help your customer in non-business areas as well. You should position yourself as someone who cares more about the success of your customer than anything else, even more than you care about selling your product or service. This approach to partnering in profit with your customer is a key way to differentiate yourself and to keep your customer for the indefinite future.

Don’t Criticize
The biggest mistake people make when first applying this concept, is to find fault and express it in a horrible way.  Don’t do that!  Soften whatever you need to say with, “I see you’re very successful at . . . .  Have you ever thought about . . .?  I could help you by . . .”  Then use your standard closing of, “would you like to hear more about that?” or even “Is that of interest to you?”

Practice the Reciprocity Principle
There is a principle of reciprocity in business that is very powerful. It is simply this: If you do something nice for someone else, they will feel obligated to do something nice for you. You should be looking for opportunities to go the extra mile, to do more than you are paid for, to put in more than you take out. By extending yourself, you improve your positioning in the customer’s mind and increasingly differentiate yourself and your company from your competitors who are after the same business. If you do this long enough and strong enough, you will eventually develop the partnership to the point where your competitors don’t have a chance against you.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

1. Think about how you can help your customer’s customer with your product or service. Take time to understand how your customer uses your product to do her business better.  Create a list and add to it when you think of something new, then review the list before your next meeting.
2. Focus on increasing your customer’s profits and financial results.  Use your list and work with your client to reduce costs and increase sales volume.  Show your customer that doing business with you is both satisfying and profitable in the long run.

Until next time,
Live Joyfully!

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Get Inspired! What do you want to create? Wake Up and Create the Life You Want: A Guide to Self-Empowerment has helped hundreds of women business owners create the life of their dreams. You can read their stories here. If you choose the downloadable version, it comes with my free report on “The Science of Getting Rich.”

Get Organized! Learn the secrets of getting and staying motivated and organized with the Eliminate Clutter and Organize Your Life E-book. This inspiring book gives you step-by-step instructions for getting control of every area of your life.  No woman should be without this powerful guide.  Click here for the table of contents and to purchase.

Be sure you’ve signed up, downloaded, are reading through and utilizing all of the freebies I’m giving out for the New Year. If you missed them, you can sign up now.

Posted under Education, Leadership, Success