There’s a problem with the way many business owners view selling. They often see a tug-of-war between happy customers and a sale – the more they sell to a customer, the unhappier a customer gets or vice versa.
In this blog post I’m going to show you a very simple concept that will help you create better relationships with your customers as you surprise and delight them, and you’ll also sell more to them.
First, put aside the idea that your job is to answer a customer’s call for help with a problem. And second, put aside the notion of “selling” in the traditional way. Instead, adopt a concept I call “Proactive Serving”.
What is Proactive Serving? It’s the act of anticipating customer needs before they do, and serving them by making accurate, timely recommendations that are generous, fair, and helpful.
Here are a couple of examples from my own business:
- When one of our experts is in a customer’s house to fix something, if we notice that something else is broken then we offer to also repair that other broken thing.
- We may call up some of our customers if we think they would benefit from having a generator on hand for emergencies.
There are many other times when we are proactively serving our customers but these are two excellent examples that illustrate the concept: rather than waiting for the customer to reach out to us, we reach out to the customer with our best recommendation for their situation. And, we don’t take an aggressive “sales approach” to try to push a product or service they don’t need. Rather, we offer them something we know will help them.
Customers love this approach. The proactive piece of this concept means a lot to them because sometimes customers don’t realize just how problematic something is until we point it out to them and show them that it can be fixed. And the service piece of this concept means that we have our customers’ best interests at heart. We aren’t trying to push something on them that they don’t need; we’re instead trying to enhance the quality of their life.
Are you proactively serving your customers? I suspect that many readers will admit that they’re not, but I also suspect that many more readers will say they are serving but not proactively.
To proactively serve your customers, start by identifying a few ways that you can help your customers through an additional service or product. For example: repairs, water filtration systems, and generators are three opportunities.
Then, train your staff to offer at least one of these proactive services every time. Explain to them the importance of providing proactive service (it’s good for the customer and for your business).
If you want happier customers who buy more from you, the solution is simple: Proactive Serving.
