Sales | The Age of the Customer – by Jim Blasingame

The Age of the Customer Power Question: Ask it and then deliver

February 9, 2016 2:16 pm , admin

One hundred twenty years ago, lawyer Paul J. Harris moved his practice to Chicago. While he enjoyed the new opportunity his adopted city afforded, Harris missed the friendly relationships he knew growing up in a small Vermont town.

One fall day in 1900, while walking around the Windy City’s North Side with Bob Frank, Harris noticed the connections his friend had made with local shopkeepers and it made him long for this kind of interaction. He wondered if, like himself, other professionals who had emigrated from rural America to the big cities, might be experiencing the same feeling of loss.

Over the next few years, Harris couldn’t stop asking himself this question: Could such human connection activity be channeled into organized settings for professionals and business people? Today we know the answer to Harris’ question is civic groups, but at the dawn of the 20th century, this innovation had yet to be invented.

Then on February 23, 1905, Paul Harris put his connection question to the test when he and three friends founded the world’s first civic club. They named it Rotary because they planned to rotate weekly meetings between each member’s office.

Now an international success story, 33,000 Rotary clubs around the globe are still based on Harris’s founding principle of “Service above Self.” Harris’ original dream was to connect people for the benefit of all parties. He probably didn’t use this term, but his 1905 connecting formula is the modern definition of networking.

Three-quarters of a century later, Ivan Misner had a dream of creating a structured networking model when he founded Business Network International. Misner’s goal was very much like Harris’s but with the specific purpose of business people meeting regularly to help each other grow their businesses.

Though not a civic organization, the motto of BNI’s 7,400 chapters worldwide, “Givers gain,” is completely compatible with Rotary’s founding pledge. If you turned either one into an offer to someone else, you get what I call the Age of the Customer Power Question: “What can I do to help you?”

The significant international success of Rotary and BNI has revealed and reinforced two important truths: 1) networking is an essential professional discipline; and 2) putting others first is powerful.

This month Rotarians will celebrate the 111th anniversary of Paul Harris’ dream-come-true, and BNI celebrates International Networking Week. Whether you participate in a civic club, a BNI chapter, your local chamber of commerce or other group, become a more frequent, accomplished and selfless networker. Because face-to-face networking is the original social media and it’s still important.

Write this on a rock …In the Age of the Customer, you don’t have to join any group to ask and deliver on the Power Question.

Posted in: Networking, Sales , Tagged: BNI, networking, Rotary, small business

What kind of seller are you? Hidebound or Visionary?

March 31, 2014 8:00 am , admin

Since 1993, control of the three major elements of your customer relationships—product, information, and buying decision—has been shifting from business to customer. As you may remember, I’ve identified this shift as a marketplace transition from the original age to the new one—the 10,000 year-old Age of the Seller is being replaced by what I call The Age of the Customer®.

As this shift plays out, two types of businesses—Hidebound Sellers and Visionary Sellers—currently exist in parallel universes, but not for long. Which one are you?

Hidebound Sellers

These companies are so invested and entrenched in the old order of control that they deny the reality in front of them. They can be identified by the following markers:

• Misplaced frustration: As performance goals get harder to accomplish, frustration makes those who deny the new realities think their pain is caused by a failure to execute.

• Bad strategies: It is said that armies prepare for the next war by training for the last one. So it is with Hidebound Sellers. Not only do Age of the Customer influences make them think they’re being attacked, but they persist in using Age of the Seller countermeasures.

• Destructive pressure: Convinced of execution failure, pressure brought to bear by management results in an employee casualty list instead of a growing customer list.

• Equity erosion: Defiance in the face of overwhelming evidence sustains the deniers only until they run out of Customers with old expectations, and their equity and access to credit are depleted.

Visionary Sellers

These businesses are adjusting their plans to conform to the new reality of more control by customers. Visionary Sellers are identified by these markers:

• Acceptance: They accept that the customer is now in control and make relevance adjustments to this reality.

Modern sales force: They hire and train their sales force to serve increasingly informed and empowered customers.

• Technology adoption: They offer technology options that allow customers to find, connect, and do business using their preferences.

• Relevance over competitiveness: They recognize that while being competitive is still important, today it’s just table stakes, and is being replaced in customer priority by the new coin of the realm: relevance.

In The Age of the Customer, Hidebound Sellers are dinosaurs waiting for extinction. Visionary Sellers are finding success by orienting operations and strategies around a more informed and empowered customer.

So what’s the verdict? Are you Hidebound or Visionary?

Posted in: Sales

Don’t forget to listen

February 22, 2014 9:00 am , , admin

Perhaps the two most important things salespeople can understand is:

1. The information in their own head is not as important as the yet-to-be-mined information in their prospect’s head; and

2. Knowing how to talk little enough and listen long enough, to be able to mine that gold.

The lesson is similar for small business owners who’ve gone to a lot of trouble and expense to hiresmart employees. We already know what we know; we need to know what’s in the heads of the members of our brain trust. We need our folks to be open and productive with their ideas about problem-solving and business strategy.

How do we do that? Not by behaving like we’re sitting on our throne with all the answers, that’s for sure. Instead, let’s consider the thinking of author and management guru, Peter Drucker, who said, “My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant, and ask a few questions.”

I know you’re very proud of what you’ve learned and how much you’ve accomplished; and you should be. But if your business isn’t hitting on all cylinders; if your plans just aren’t coming to fruition like you intended; if you don’t seem to be getting the most out of your investment in the other humans in your business; perhaps you should try acting ignorant and ask a few more questions.

And don’t forget to listen.

Posted in: Sales

Are you practicing Age of the Customer prospecting rules?

January 27, 2014 12:26 pm , , admin

As described here previously, control of the three primary elements of the business relationship has shifted as the Age of the Seller is being replaced by the Age of the Customer. The buying decision and access to information about how to make that decision are now controlled by the customer, leaving sellers with control of just the product.

This shift has created many disruptions, especially with entrenched Age of the Seller sales practices, but perhaps none more than business-to-business prospecting. Here are four facets to this prospecting shift:

The expectation of buyers meeting with vendors as a daily course of business is over.
After 10,000 years of needing a salesperson to provide information to make a decision, buyers are acquiring much of that information on their own online.
Prospects are now self-qualifying themselves, and then pre-qualify prospective vendors they choose to meet with, perhaps as few as two, or even just one.
Prospects are essentially ruling competitors in or out before first contact, often before the business knows the prospect even exists.

Prospects like this new empowerment because it saves time, contributes to their decision-making journey, and reduces contact with uncompetitive and irrelevant vendors. Consequently, getting in front of a prospect for a first meeting, which once was almost automatic, now requires addressing the following new Age of the Customer rules of prospecting.

Prospects require a higher level of introduction before granting a sales call.
Prospect research must be conducted.
Networking – in person and online – is essential.
Prospect development and nurturing must be practiced with patience and a dialed down sense of urgency.
With competitiveness now assumed, being relevant is the new differentiator.
Contribute first, contract second.
Relevance and values must be demonstrated.

Even the best salesperson, who will still need every classic selling skill to close the sale, is useless if he or she can’t get in front of the prospect before the buying decision has been made.

Companies that expect to meet sales goals now have to put as much, if not more, emphasis and resources on training, equipping, budgeting, measuring, and perhaps even compensating salespeople for the prospecting disciplines of the Age of the Customer.

Which age is your sales organization prospecting in?

Posted in: Networking, Sales

Are you hidebound or visionary?

January 16, 2014 12:19 pm , , admin

Since 1995, control of the three major elements of your customer relationships – product, information, and buying decision – has been shifting from business to customer. As you may remember, I’ve identified this shift as a marketplace transition from the original age to the new one – the 10,000 year-old Age of the Seller is being replaced by the Age of the Customer.

As this shift plays out, two types of businesses – Hidebound Sellers and Visionary Sellers – currently exist in parallel universes, but not for long. Which one are you?

Hidebound Sellers

These companies are so invested and entrenched in the old order of control that they deny the reality in front of them. They can be identified by the following markers:

Misplaced frustration: As performance goals get harder to accomplish, frustration makes those who deny the new realities think their pain is caused by a failure to execute.
Bad strategies: It is said that armies prepare for the next war by training for the last one. So it is with Hidebound Sellers. Not only do Age of the Customer influences make them think they’re being attacked, but they persist in using Age of the Seller countermeasures.
Destructive pressure: Convinced of execution failure, pressure brought to bear by management results in an employee casualty list instead of a growing customer list.
Equity erosion: Defiance in the face of overwhelming evidence sustains the deniers only until they run out of Customers with old expectations, and/or equity and access to credit are depleted.

Visionary Sellers

These businesses are adjusting their plans to conform to the new reality of more control by customers. Visionary Sellers are identified by these markers:

Acceptance: They accept that the customer is now in control and make appropriate adjustments to this reality.
Modern sales force: They hire and train their sales force to serve increasingly informed and empowered customers.
Technology adoption: They offer technology options that allow customers to find, connect, and do business using their preferences.
Relevance over competitiveness: They recognize that while being competitive is still important, today it’s just table stakes and is being replaced in customer priority by the new coin of the realm: relevance.

In the Age of the Customer, Hidebound Sellers are dinosaurs waiting for extinction. Visionary Sellers are finding success by orienting operations and strategies around a more informed and empowered customer.

So what’s the verdict? Are you Hidebound or Visionary?

Posted in: Mobile Strategy, Online Content, Sales

The new class of small business influencers

December 30, 2013 4:47 pm , , admin

In The Age of the Seller, three groups mattered to a business for sales growth: suspects, prospects and customers. Let’s talk about these in order of appearance.

A suspect is anybody and everybody; think of the names in the local phone book. Initially, a business has no relationship with a suspect until contact is made in some way. Then, if the qualifying criteria turns them into a prospect, the relationship develops further until they’re converted into a customer, or not. For 10,000 years, of these three, only prospects and customers were influencers of a business.

In the Age of the Customer, which was born of the Internet, businesses have to learn how to operate where influencers are not only evaluating their traditional activity, but their online presence as well. And in the new Age, there are now three influencers: the original two, plus a new one.

The new influencer is users, and their impact is only online.

Like suspects in the original Age, users are people you probably have not yet developed a business relationship with. Unlike suspects, users become influencers of your business in at least five ways, but only if you have an Internet presence:

Users find you online and appraise your offerings, information, and behavior before you know they exist.
Users can influence others by posting their appraisal – good or not so much – on any of the commenting (Yelp) or social media platforms (Facebook). And even if the appraisal is not good, you still get the next three.
The very act of users finding you, especially if they leave a commenting trail, reveals themselves to you.
Some form of contact information (email, handle, cookie, etc.) is left behind.
You can assume that the user has at least a tacit interest in what you do and sell.

Users are suspects on steroids. I have identified them as a new class of prospect, because as they wield their influence, they actually self-qualify themselves without any direct cost or involvement by you. How much could that impact your prospect development plan?

If you’re still unimpressed with the potential of this new group of influencers to your business, remember this: The drivers of value for the big social media platforms are not customers, but hundreds of millions of users. And every small business has the ability to convert a user into a paying customer in a way that makes Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn green with envy.

Develop a strategy to turn users into your new class of prospects.

Posted in: Sales

The Rules of Selling Have Changed

December 16, 2013 2:53 am , , admin

During the Age of the Seller, getting an initial meeting was the easy step,
while closing the sale was more involved and required the most skill. But Age
of the Customer influences have shifted the way buyers prepare themselves
to purchase products or services, from needing assistance from a salesperson,
to being able to pre-qualify themselves by themselves. Buyers are avoiding
prospecting calls from all but the short list of vendors they have identified as
worthy in their information gathering process.

Armed with Age of the Customer resources, buyers now have access to most of the information they require to make a pre-qualifying decision. This unassisted information acquisition results in disruptions to the selling process and the cold-call looks a lot different today.