Many of your best clients do business with your competitors. You’d love to gain some of that business, so today we present an excellent strategy that will help. It’s called “pull strategy.”
Pull strategy is based on a simple idea: in order to stand out and gain more business from existing customers, you need to be more proactive with them.
That means anticipating problems and developing solutions… before customers request them. Astute relationship managers proactively and continuously evaluate each of their best customers and design solutions to address their unique circumstances.
How do customers benefit from pull strategy?
By being proactive, you ultimately…
- Save your customers time
- Reduce their workload and/or anxiety
- Help them anticipate and avoid problems
- Enhance their profitability
- Position them to win with their bosses, internal stakeholders, and the company
How do you and your company benefit?
A proactive approach…
- Ensures long-term customer retention
- Increases your level of influence in the relationship
- Reduces customer focus on price
- Opens the door to relationship growth…including more business
- Positions you as a trusted advisor (valued partner) who cares
That last benefit, achieving trusted advisor/valued partner status, is the most important of all, because it means that your clients willpull you in to their personal and business lives. They will see you as an extension of their business and as a strategic resource, expert and advocate who works on their behalf. By being worthy of their trust, you will enjoy an opportunity to influence and shape important business decisions.
Here’s how to gain trust and leverage pull strategy:
- Leave your personal agenda at the door
- Focus on each customer’s unique needs and issues
- Subordinate your own needs and wants
- Do the right thing…what’s best for the customer
- Ask and intensely listen
The common thread found in the five bullets above is trust. In order to gain trust, you must resist the temptation to pitch your product and service at every opportunity. Customers will be less likely to pull you in as an extension of their team if you dump product or company information on them at every turn.
Deepen your relationships and sell more by questioning and listening rather than pitching. You will become a trusted advisor and gain the opportunity to leverage the pull strategy by acutely focusing on your customer and his/her business and…delivering value at every turn!
For it is in giving that we receive
Francis of Assisi
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