Understanding Your Customers Needs

Understanding your customer’s needs in an ever changing market is critical in today’s economy. I attended Nomadic Display’s training in Washington, DC on Selling Larger Exhibits this week and I was elated to hear them stress the importance of listening to and understanding your customer’s vision, strategies, corporate branding, and marketing needs before discussing how your products or services can solve any problems they may be experiencing. This is the same philosophy I have built our company on for the past nine years and in my 16 years experience in the trade show industry.

Many times I see sales people so focused on selling a product or brand their company represents that they lose sight of the customer’s needs and do not listen to their customer. When someone expresses interest in your company and has established a need you may be able to solve, the worst thing you can do is delve into how using your product or service is a way to solve that need.

Try asking questions like, “What five adjectives best describe your company?” or even better, try asking “Can you tell me about your company using 140 characters or less?” This is a way to get your client to focus on their marketing message and tell their story in a direct and unique way without too much detail. It also allows you to hear any underlying needs the customer may not be expressing.

Marketing should be the forefront of business interaction before selling a product or service. Establishing credibility, in addition to being perceived as the authority and getting the client to know, to like and to trust you, should be your priority and the rest will fall into place.

So you may ask, what is your point? My point is that today’s sales person needs to be more than a sales person. Become a partner with their customer in identifying and understanding their market needs, strategies, corporate culture and persona before solving a problem with a product or service. This is truly relationship building and lets you become a strategic partner with your customer. Today’s customer is busy and overcommitted — so take the time to relate and relationship build first.

Remember, today’s customer receives over 3,000 touch point messages a day through many different mediums so setting yourself apart from your competition is important. How are you different from your competitor? What are you doing to differentiate yourself from your competition? I can tell you I know we are different from our competition and our customers also can see this. The next time you are preparing for that sales presentation, be sure to research your customer and go in ready to listen before trying to immediately solve a problem.