Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: Customer List - Only the Beginning

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...You have a customer list? So what? I have to laugh when I see companies guard their customer list with their lives. Do you really think someone is going to make hay with your customer list? If you’re a retail or wholesale company selling to the general population, a customer list does have some value--they are bought and sold all the time. All the golf equipment companies want to know who bought golf shoes last year and the golf shoe companies want to know who bought nine irons last year and so on. Makes sense, doesn’t it? But that’s not the business we’re in.

We’re in the business-to-business world and that’s a completely different ball game. Everyone already knows who our customers are. In fact, it gets tedious talking to salespeople who “reveal” that Motorola is in Chicago and Phoenix, that Honeywell is in Phoenix, that Boeing is in Seattle, that Harris is in Melbourne, and that Apple is in Cupertino with the same aplomb as if they were telling you the location of the Fountain of Youth. Give me a break. Everyone knows those companies and where they’re located. So what?

As for the not-so-famous companies, that’s why we have directories--Google and databases. All you have to do is a little research and you can discover all kinds of companies that buy circuit boards. If you do your homework right you can even find the names and contact information of the key people who buy circuit boards. Good for you. Now what?

Now the real work begins. All you have is a list and your marketing and selling must take over. If you’re paranoid about someone seeing your customer list, relax. It’s not a big deal. What is a big deal, the real challenge, is what you do with that list. How do you convert those names into customers?

Here are six tips to get you started:

1. Do your homework. Find out everything you can about the customer before you pick up the phone. You should know everything about his company, from what kind of business they’re in, their market position, and the size of the company to whether or not they have a bad, good, or great product. Find out what’s important to them by looking at the company’s Web site. It will give you a good impression of what they believe it and what their values are.
2. Apply what you learn to your sales story. Before a meeting takes place, apply what you’ve learned to your sales presentation. If service is important to the company, show them your customer service is outstanding. Give examples by sharing stories of great customer service from your other customers. If time-to-market is a priority for the prospective company, give examples of your promptness. 
3. Thaw out a cold call with an advanced attack. Either by e-mail, snail mail, or LinkedIn message, send the company a note that will entice them to want to know more about you, your company, and your product. Use Steps 1 and 2 to create a message and make it pertinent enough that the prospective company will be intrigued. How to you make something intriguing? Simple: Talk about the company and their needs.
4. Develop a great message. Voice-mail can be your friend. Remember the message you developed? That story that belongs to only you and your customer. Reiterate that story in a one-minute voice-mail. If your message is intriguing enough via the written word it will be even more so in voice-mail. 
5. Have a great meeting. If you follow Steps 1-4 diligently, you’ll have your face-to-face meeting with a prospect who is now sharing your story. She will want to meet you; she may even look forward to meeting someone who knows so much about her company and how to help her achieve her goals. But make sure that you drive the conversation so that she is doing most of the talking (no one ever learned anything by talking). She’s already decided to trust you; you have already shown her that you know what you’re talking about--she’s looking to you as someone who can help her and her company. She will be ready to trust you with even more information and will be happy to fill in the story with actual facts about what they are doing and how you can help them. That’s right: Let her tell you how you can help her and her company. That is what sales is all about, isn’t it? Selling your customer a solution.
6. Get that quote. Once you have your meeting with the customer, your goal is to get the opportunity to quote. Make sure you walk away from the meeting with a request for quote (RFQ). Don’t be afraid to ask the prospective company what the next step is. If you’ve done everything well, the next step will be that quote.
7. Bonus tip: Close the order. Jump on that quote immediately; use all the information you’ve gleaned so far and design your quote to fit the company’s needs. Make them an offer they can’t refuse…and I’m not just talking about price. Keep value in mind. At this point, the prospective company is actually hoping that your price will be agreeable because they want to do business with you. Make that happen and close the deal.

It’s only common sense.