Let Your Customers Help

I just put away my often-brought-out crystal ball, which has the unique ability to see the past as clearly as it shows the present. It showed me pictures of a sales team meeting from the early eighties. I could barely hear the discussion at the gathering, but I could make out that they were talking about creating a sales message, printing 500 brochures and deciding how to teach the salespeople to make the message work for each of their referral sources.

They kept talking about how they could save money on printing and how easy it was going to be for each sales representative just to learn one sales message and get it right. It was strange to hear very little talk about the customers and what they might want to hear.

I think for many of us preparing a marketing message, it is about what we think we should be talking about rather than what entices people to do business with us.

I decided that crystal ball’s venture into the past would do little to teach me about the future. Then I remembered an article I had read about physician selling strategies, and I realized those in training in the pharmaceutical industry may have a lot to teach us. They keep addressing physician-focused selling. There is little talk about large and exciting marketing messages and elaborate four-color brochures using the latest easy-to-ready typeface.

Additional articles I have read recently focus on building a marketing message around the needs of customers. How unusual! How creative! Is this something we’re missing? Why are we in home medical equipment sales missing the message that our colleagues are preaching — the one that keeps telling us “it’s all about the customer.”

The issue is not to develop strategies about selling to physicians or social workers from our own perspective but to understand that in each of these categories there are a variety of specialists with unique interests.

Physicians may specialize in geriatrics or internal medicine, etc., as social workers or case managers may specialize in orthopedics, cardiology or pediatrics. There is never going to be a way that 500 brochures about anything your home care company offers will work for the entire group of physicians or social workers. I think 20 years ago we had that belief.

Customer-focused selling will change that focus and help you reach your desired business results. How come we did not think about this before? Where have we been?

How do we prepare our sales team for this “new” approach to selling? Consider these six suggestions:

1. Make a list of all of your referral sources and potential referral sources not simply by discipline but by specialty. Focus on what gets their attention.
2. Under each specialty, begin to determine what is important to that physician working with that particular type of patient or disease entity.
3. Create another list of all the social workers you call on and determine their specialty and interest. If you were creating a brochure just for them, what would the title be?
4. List what each referral source might want from a home care company. No two are exactly the same. The more you talk to the referral and the more you listen to their message, you will identify what works for them.
5. When the customer (the target of your work) expresses a concern or issue, that topic may need to become the centerpiece of your marketing message.
6. Determine what the customer values. The closer you come to understanding their values, the closer you will come to aligning your message to their needs.

It’s not about polishing a message, but more about how you decided upon the message. Why are you saying what you’re saying?

Is your sales plan based on what you have learned about your referral sources, their expectations and requirements? Are you spending enough time educating yourself about the customer as well as educating the customer about you? Wouldn’t it be interesting if our customers helped us create a sales plan?

That’a a good question. Dear Customer, What do you want to know about us before you consider us a serious contender for your business? Take time to role play that game in your office and see what you learn.

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Louis Feuer is president of Dynamic Seminars & Consulting Inc. and the founder and director of the DSC Teleconference Series, a teleconference training program. You can reach him through www.DynamicSeminars.com or at 954/435-8182.