Relationship Selling

By Tom McClung

January 2011

Selling a product or service requires a good understanding of customer needs.  Approaches for selling a product or service continue to evolve over time.  In many businesses, the more traditional process of finding a quick sale is being replaced by what might be called relationship selling.  This involves building a relationship with prospective customers which often results in selling something over a longer period of time.  Let’s look at some key elements of the relationship selling process.

Building Trust with the Customer – A basic premise of relationship selling is that building trust with prospective customers increases the probability of a sale.  To build trust, it is important that a prospective customer has faith in the salesperson’s integrity, can see the relevance of a product or service, and is convinced that what will be purchased can be provided on a timely basis as well as at a fair price.

Maintain a Longer Term Perspective – Selling something to a customer may be immediate (e.g., in the retail setting) but can take a longer period of time.  Successful relationship selling requires patience, can result in a greater degree of uncertainty about selling a product or service, and does provide more opportunity for a competitor to make a “pitch” to your prospective customers.  A longer term perspective may seem counter intuitive but can pay real dividends.

Ensure a What’s In It For Me (WIFM) Focus – The WIFM in relationship selling needs to be focused on the prospective customer and not the salesperson.  More specifically, the focus is on what a customer needs and not on all the features of a product or service that may, or may not, be needed by the customer.

Perhaps relationship selling can be better understood if we look at this approach compared to what many may consider a more traditional approach to selling (i.e., convincing a customer that they need a product or service and not taking time to learn more about the needs of an individual or business).  Let’s compare these approaches on four different continuums.

Level of Personalization – One end of this continuum involves doing whatever is necessary to get a sale.  As one moves toward the relationship selling end of this continuum, there is a greater focus on learning more about such things as affordability and usefulness of a product or service.  In short, it becomes a relationship built from the customer’s perspective.

Timing/Immediacy of the Sales Transaction – The ends of this continuum present a contrast on the immediacy of the sales process.  Building a relationship with a customer often takes time.  If an individual is to be successful through relationship selling, he/she needs to continue cultivating relationships such that consummating sales transactions continues to take place at different intervals throughout one’s sales career.

Me versus Other Focus of the Sales Relationship – This continuum reflects moving from a natural inclination to sell something for my personal benefit versus being open to walking away from a sale because getting to know the customer results in seeing that what is being sold is not useful or beneficial to the customer.

Amount of Talking versus Listening – Relationship selling places a greater emphasis on listening to enhance understanding customer needs versus talking a majority of the time to convince a prospective customer that they need what is being sold.

Each of us has to make money to maintain our livelihood.  For those working in sales, this means successfully selling something to someone.  Therefore, it is not easy to walk away from a potential sale because it is apparent that it is in the best interest of a customer.  However, building relationships and selling based on customer needs can lead to greater sales over time when compared to using the traditional sales approach.