In the sales and marketing of petroleum products, I have imbibed the competition not taught by any business school or institute except accepting to learn the hard case studies by my own toil and turmoil. So in order to survive in the most competitive field like lubricants and now fuels also, we need to do things differently and a greater bit innovatively.
The strategy followed by me is most of the time, during the period of more than two decades, is that I used to carry some new and vital information to the customer, which he is totally unaware of the same.
Don’t ask me what is that customer is unaware of!
You are as his supplier or vendor who needs to find out that and give that contemporary information to him in the most fashionable form so that he is impressed in the first place and the ball of business automatically rolls in your favor. Be cautious while presenting this information to him nicely so that he is not offended.
Never present the competitor’s information in a disturbing manner so that the marketing plus points of your product gets squared off.
Most of the places, age parity is also one of the notable issues between customer and seller’s sales executive in developing countries. This is quite evident nowadays as product manufacturers are just trying to recruit young blood in the field as the turnover ratio is also high in this field.
Leaders and so-called managers are required to update the field force about this and as and when they go in the field and meet the decision making people (in many cases, they could be senior people on an average) and ensure that the difference of opinions or protocol problems does not arise and decorum followed by the legacy is continued without disturbance.
Getting into a little bit into the personals of the customer, provided time and momentum during the discussion permits, will also help you to go closer to the customer.
And always look for a chance to listen and abet his discussion wherever it is possible so that his commercial needs are taken care of.
While, it is always imperative and advantageous to go and meet the customer under intimation to him so that he plans himself to listen to you carefully so that mutual business obligations are achieved, lest, it might end up with some furore in a transaction.
In the end, as the competition is making us stand on toes and customer is most of the times being volatile due to ever-increasing trends, one has to keep abreast of market trends and keep updating himself so that meaningful dialogue happens.
The more you are agile, the more easily the business and it’s handling too.
May be a few points like this in rapport building. Never try to do selling for the sake of sales. Once that happens, automatically roads are paved for the next level of discussion.
Tales of sales do happen once the customer is made clear from his previous feeble experience with competitors.
