Know your customer

Inspired by Mike Kennedy

To know your product is expected! To know your customer is the difference between a professional and an also ran This is customer relationship management!

When Mike emailed me with this idea, it got my mind focused around the psychology of the selling process. It's often said that the best sales person is not the one who knows the product best, but the one who understands people.

Some years ago I decided to go back to night school and take an A-level exam in Psychology (I think that's equivalent to a top High School grade in North America). I don't think that I learnt a lot of new ideas - just how to apply a few scientific names to common sense ideas about people which most of us know - but which most of us forget when we're dealing with people.

In the selling process, the salesperson is usually so wrapped up in what they are selling, and what's in it for them, that they fail to focus on what the customer really wants.

Often, the result is an un-spoken battle; the salesperson is saying silently 'Dammit, you will buy'. The prospect is thinking 'I'm damned if I'll be conned into buying'. The result is a lose-lose situation, which is often how battles end.

When you are in a selling situation, forget about yourself! You are the least important person in the process, whatever you might think. So accept the inevitable, focus 100 per cent on how you can help the customer - and watch it work magic! (By the way, I passed the exam!)

Thanks for that prompting thought, Mike. Mike's company, incidentally, is KARY-KEG. They manufacture an ultra-portable drinks dispenser which can be back-packed round sporting events and the like, taking beverages to the customers and avoiding selling cans (which could be used as projectiles). Contact Mike if you're interested in distributing this unique product.

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