Carol Bartlett is a senior level executive with broad experience in the oil & gas and transportation industries who manages more than $200M in annual sales. Using a combination of proven techniques, Ms. Bartlett focuses on growth results. She bridges theoretical business principles and philosophies to strategic actions that give profitable results. By deploying integrated proven strategies, she adds value to companies that want to grow sales and increase profits.

Jol Hunter has spent a large portion of his career as a partner with the national firm of chartered accountants and business advisors. In the past few years, with three other gentlemen, he has owned a substantial Atlantic Canadian business and so he is experiencing the joys and challenges of the ownership and operation of a medium-sized business.

Chris Spurvey spearheaded the growth of Plato Consulting to the point that it was acquired by KPMG, one of the largest management consulting firms in the world. In his time there, he sold more than $300 million in consulting services. After the acquisition, Chris changed his focus to helping other "non-sales sellers" find a way to grow revenue in a consistent, stress-free manner. He published It's Time to Sell: Cultivating the Sales Mindset, founded Make Sales a Habit University, and became a growth advisor to business owners and their management teams throughout the world.

 

This week on the podcast, we take a deep dive into one of the three competitive strategies for market leadership, as mentioned in the book The Discipline of Market Leaders: customer intimacy.

Chris, Jol, and Carol talk about the types of conversations you can have with your customers to enable you to learn their pain points, the opportunities that come from having an intimate relationship with your customers, and the importance of having an attitude of service.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

 

Getting into the Lives of Your Customers

Working at a Fortune 500 company, I learned how they get into the lives of their customers. For the business to be successful, we had to do that.

Scale is important. How much do you know about your customer? How many touchpoints do you have? How well do you know the customer's business? What are its pain points? Businesses thrive on knowing as much as possible about their customers.

Customer Intimacy for Small Organizations

The organizations that I've worked with have many, many customers. In retail, you can't contact all of your customers.

But you should have touch points for the customers who buy your products on a regular basis. You can automate some of that contact. Regardless, touchpoints can give you an understanding of where your sales are coming from and how you can increase them. Where is your market share coming from? What industry is giving you most of your customers? Do you know that industry extremely well, or do you need to learn more about its pain points?

A Structure for Diagnostic Conversations with Your Customers

As the relationship between you and your customer develops, a broader range of issues are introduced into the conversation. In this way, your opportunities to serve that customer grow. And so do your sales opportunities.

But how can you cultivate such a relationship? Talk about the aspirations of the person and the aspirations of the person's business so that you can gather information and better understand the situation. Help him or her to articulate goals and then think through strategies and tactics for reaching those goals. Clearly articulate what is going well and what is not going so well. Out of a conversation like that, issues pop. The issues may be strictly business ones or may be related to personal matters. When the issues have been identified, the opportunities will flow.

To learn more about these topics, listen to the episode.

 

Mentions

Connect with Carol, Jol and Chris on LinkedIn.

The Discipline of Market Leaders (book) by Michael Treacy & Fred Wiersema