On entertaining your customers

Agency Sales,  Aug 2002  by Kahle, Dave

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

How much time should I spend entertaining my customers? Good question. The world of the field salesperson is changing rapidly these days, and everything is in question. The practice of entertaining customers is one of those issues that needs to be rethought.

First, let's consider whether or not you should entertain your customers. In these days of e-commerce and Internet communication, is there a place for this age-old practice?

Consider this experience. I had a high-potential account that did not respond to my efforts. Months went by, and I could get nowhere in this huge account.

My company owned four season tickets to the University of Michigan football games, and it was my turn to use them. I invited the head of the purchasing department from that account and her spouse to join my wife and me. We spent the afternoon together, first enjoying a traditional tail-gate meal, then a great college football game.

Immediately thereafter, I began to do business in that account. Business grew continually until it eventually became my largest account. The football game was the turning point in the relationship.

It wasn't that I gained "inside" information. We didn't even talk about business. My customer simply came to know me better, and, in so doing, became more comfortable with me as a person. And that made all the difference.

That was neither the first nor the last time for that experience. I regularly treated two of my customers with their spouses to join my wife and me for a dinner at Greek Town in Detroit, followed by a Tigers' game. We never talked business, but afterward, business always grew.

Again, it wasn't that we exchanged business information, cut deals, or anything of that nature. What did happen every time was that my customers came to know me better and differently. We became friends instead of just buyers and sellers.

There is an important truth illustrated by these examples. People like to do business with people they know. The better they know you, the more likely it is that they'll do business with you. When they spend time with you outside of the business setting, they come to know you better. It really is that simple.

Now, this doesn't mean that you can charge 20% more than your competitors, nor does it mean that you can sell an inferior product, or that your company can get away with second-class service.

However, when many of these things are viewed by the customer as about the same as what your competition offers, you are more likely to get to the business if you are the one who has the greater relationship with the customer. The relationship doesn't stand in place of quality, price and service, but it can provide a competitive edge.

In my seminars, I liken the role of the relationship in selling to an oil can that is used to lubricate the gears of a sophisticated machine. It is possible to sell without good relationships with your customers; it is just much harder. Building powerful personal relationships with your customers is like oiling the gears. It just makes everything move that much smoother and easier.

In this time of high-tech communication, powerful personal relationships provide the high-touch that many people are subconsciously hungering for. Robert Putnam, in his landmark book, Bowling Alone, quoted a study by an MIT researcher that concludes:

"Though some unimportant business relationships and casual social relationships will be established and maintained on a purely virtual basis, physical proximity will be needed to cement and reinforce the more important professional and social encounters."

Later, more directly to our point, the research concludes: "...widespread use of computer-mediated communication will actually require more frequent face-to-face encounters, and an extensive, deep, robust social infrastructure of relationships must exist so that those using the electronic media will truly understand what others are communicating to them."

In other words, even in this high-tech world characterized by voice mail, e-commerce and instant messaging, face-to-face relationships are necessary. Is there, then, a place for entertaining your customers in this high tech sales environment? Absolutely! The question becomes not whether or not you ought to, but how to do it in such a way as to gain the greatest benefit. Here are some thoughts on how to entertain effectively.

Entertaining Strategically

Having lunch every Tuesday with your buddy who happens to work for one of your customers is not entertaining strategically. That's a waste of time.

Instead, do this. Make a list of all the individuals who could be instrumental in buying your products and services. Rank them in order of importance using criteria such as how important they are to the sale and how much business they control.

Then, start at the top and methodically work down through the list. Try to spend social time - not business time - with each.

I have found evening or Saturday afternoon events work best. Sports events, concerts, and plays are excellent because they are attractive and appealing to a lot of people. To sit at the 40-yard line of a University of Michigan football game, for example, is probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most people.