Sales training programs regularly teach us about Making Customers Win. It is all about Thinking Win - Win. But how do you really do it? I saw a wonderful example of really making your customers win.
I recently read a blog http://sacramentorealestategal.blogspot.com/
The author is a real-estate broker called Purva Brown from Sacramento - somewhere in the United States I think. At the moment, US real-estate market is under pressure with foreclosures, the subprime crisis, falling prices and the works. Probably the worst time to be in the real estate broking business. You will see most people resorting to signs like the one on the right.
But not Purva.
Being a property broker, she is really a medium of exchange between the buyer and the seller (remember my first post on BRIDGE?). So in effect, both the buyer and the seller are her customers. Conventional wisdom would have us think, if the seller wins then the buyer looses and vice versa. So then, which of her customers does she focus on? The one which approaches her first? Or the one who is paying her the commission?
I found that she makes both of them win!!! Don't believe me? Then check out her URL.
She has worked out a beautiful way of making both her customers win. On her blog, she often writes about "Adding Value to your real estate". She regularly shares tips on home improvement, green homes, water conservation, landscaping tips, interiors etc. She is helping customers about finance options. She writes about ways of saving property taxes. She updates her readers (future customers) about local property legislations, property facts and much more.
Now this lady is no expert on any of these topics. So how does she offer these tips? By painstakingly researching articles and stories on the internet and elsewhere which her customers will like and benefit from. This is her homework to prepare for her business.
So how does this make both the sellers and buyers successful?
The Seller can get a better price for his home by implementing many of the tips which Purva passes on. So he is thankful to Purva and would like to consider selling his home through her since she "helped him improve the value" of his home.
The Buyer on the other hand looks at Purva as an expert, and expects that Purva will show him the homes with the best amenities, design, decor etc. So they too would like to approach her, and buy the most valuable property she recommends.
Now that's what I call really making your customers successful and winning more business!!!
Importantly, at a time when many real estate brokers are probably morose and witless, Purva is investing in building hope, value and confidence in her customers. As the market begins to recover, she will be the first person prospects will reach out to.
You can check out Purva Brown's blog on http://sacramentorealestategal.blogspot.com/
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2 comments:
Thanks so much for the post! You have absolutely captured the essence of what I try to do for my clients - and they have come to appreciate the "value-added" approach.
Thanks again for the mention!
In the very beginning of my carrier as Marketing professional, I had received a great thought & lesson from the M.D.of that company, i.e., "if you want the business from an Electrical Consultant then you have to be a Consultant for him". From these words of His he want to say that for building the healthy & everlasting relations with your customer then you have to give some thing extra (Knowledge) to the customer and that knowledge might not be from that customer's field that can be from any field but should be useful to the customer in one way or the another.
I can share my recent experience. Few months back I had met one architect who is one of the best in his work. That architect was so busy that he never spares time to Sales Executives of any company until or unless he requires some information from them. Some how my Sales Executive & I managed to get time from him. While Sitting & waiting for him across his working table, I fond that IPO’s of some company were lying on his table. After waiting for almost 30mins we get the time to speak out our first word to him and after exchanging our greetings & introduction, I some how managed to divert our discussion on the Share Market (which was one of the HOT TOPIC during those days), during the discussion I came to know that he is a new entrant to the Share Market world and though I have very little knowledge of the topic but I pretend that I have good enough experience in Share Trading and all. Then he asked me to give him some tips for investing his money in Share trading. That day our discussion went for almost 2hrs which includes more of Share Trading business and less of my company's business. During my next visit to him after some 3-4 weeks, I was surprised to see that as soon as his receptionist send the message that I want to meet him, that Architect (who was always busy in his works) immediately calls me into his office cabin & before staring any discussion he thanks me up as he had earn good amount of profit from the shares which I had suggested to him. And now we talked almost 4-5 times in month over his personal mobile number & also he is using products of my company in his all projects.
Even in a Great book "Magic of Thinking Big" by David J. Schwartz, in one of the chapter he had talked about that Sales professional can increase the probability of getting order form the customer against all other competitors if he shows the benefits & utilities of the product to the customer(which the customer is not aware of) and once the customer feels that the Sales Executive thinks for the benefits of that particular customer them the customer hardly go to the pricing part of that product.
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