Relational Selling Takes Time
Relational selling is so important, and a much better method than transactional selling. What is relational selling? It refers to the sales technique of focusing on the interaction between you and your client or customer, rather than just the price or details of what you are selling.
Selling in this way feels much less sleazy and is more effective. To do it, view the prospective client or customer as an equal partner and work on building the relationship, ask them good questions to get to the heart of the problem and really listen to their answers, and give personalized suggestions to solve their problem. I talk about this in more detail in my post about selling without feeling sleazy.
Here are some tips to help you take advantage of the benefits of relational selling:
Nurture those relationships.
Sometimes it takes people longer than others to realize that they either want what you are offering, that it’ll really be the solution to their problem, or that they should allocate money to spend with you. It’s important to nurture relationships and be friendly with potential clients and customers in all of the places you show up because you never know when someone is finally ready to buy from you. For example, I spoke with a prospective client in the spring, but she wasn’t ready to buy from me at that time. I kept checking in with her, knowing that if it was meant to be it would pan out, and if not, no problem. We would still be friendly and I’d still be rooting for her and her own business along the way, client or not. I nurtured that relationship, and she recently became a new client of mine.
Follow up.
Along with nurturing relationships, you need to follow up with people to make sure that they haven’t forgotten about you. Lots of times people don’t follow up because they either don’t know that they should, they don’t know how, or they feel really scared or pushy about it. It doesn’t have to feel that way. Check out my free guide on having more sales with less hustle to learn more about how.
Follow up and nurturing go hand in hand. You never know when someone is going to say, “Yes!” By having regular check-ins with them, it keeps you on their mind. When they are ready to say yes, you have the opportunity right there to let them know, “Hey, I’m still here. I’m ready for you and you’re ready for me. Great! Let’s do this.” Follow up is crucial. Still feeling overwhelmed with the idea of following up? Click here to get the free full training on my super simple follow up system.
Keep giving value.
As you are trying to continue to nurture and follow up with them in whatever way makes sense for your business, keep giving them value and a reason to stick around. Whether you have a fun, engaging, and helpful FB group (come join us in mine!), blog posts, Instastories, or YouTube videos, you are still putting yourself out there and giving them value and stuff they can enjoy along the way before they decide to do business with you.
Remember that relational selling takes time, but it’s worth it.
If you’re feeling antsy and impatient, just know that it takes time but it’s better, builds momentum, and creates raving fans that want to come back to you again and again, and at the end of the day that’s what you want.
