If you’re like me, you probably tend to gravitate toward people and situations with which you’re familiar and comfortable. There’s a certain amount of human nature involved here. The same is often true in your business transactions. When making a major purchase, certainly the quality of the product or service, the price, and terms of the sale are key factors. But beyond that, people usually want to feel comfortable with the person they’re dealing with in the transaction – the realtor, financial advisor, etc. “Comfortable” can mean many things, such as similar personality, shared values or common interests.
But it can also touch on intangible areas, such as trust. Is this person acting with my interests in mind, or just trying to make a sale and a commission? Do they really understand what’s important to me in making a decision on this purchase? These same factors that influence an individual business transaction also come into play in large business-to-business situations. This is an enormous challenge for a large corporation: how to instill in their employees – and not just the sales force – the importance of ‘personalizing’ each customer, treating them as more than just a purchase order or a support call? How do they listen, understand, and act even if there’s no immediate sale on the table? In other words, how do you develop a relationship for the long term while balancing the need to meet short term business targets? How do you create an environment for ongoing relationship building?
