Time to Renegotiate Your Relationship With Your Customers

The spasm of the global economy over the lastyour corporate initiatives, how are you evaluated,
year has completely recalibrated the customer-etc." They were not the type of questions that a
vendor relationship. In order for suppliers to fendsupplier generally asks of a customer, and I
off commoditization in a difficult operatingremember the V.P. being amused and befuddled
environment, sales professionals must be adept atby some of the questions. After about 45
renegotiating their relationship with customers.minutes of discussion, I came to discover the real
Purchasing decisions have become moreproblem which was that the customer did not
transparent, and in many cases, the primaryhave the capacity (in the form of labor or
buying contacts of the past have becomeexpertise) to manage our category of products. I
irrelevant. The $100k decision that was madeasked him "what if we could put someone in your
previously by a Director is now being made by aoffice to manage the category for you?" I will
Vice President. At a time when vendors facenever forget the customer's response: "you mean
greater risks with customers, there areyou would do that for me?" We left the office
opportunities to deepen relationships and havewith a multimillion dollar order at which time I had
more strategic conversations with decisionthe Regional Manager buy me a really big steak.
makers.Consequently, we renegotiated our relationship
In fact, offering up a senior level meeting toand positioned ourselves to provide an innovative
discuss providing more value or "reducing the totalbundle of services in alignment with the client's
cost of ownership" is compelling for the customer,existing strategic initiatives.
and opens doors for the supplier. Such meetingsIn a world where headcount is being cut, vendors
often serve as a lever to identify latent customershould not be thinking about how to cut prices,
needs that can be converted into improvementsbut how they can deliver more service. The art
that create a more synergistic and sustainableof selling (and serving customers) is really about
business relationship. The downsizing of thelistening. At a time when customer's awareness of
workforce provides significant opportunity forthe value provided by supplier is heightened, there
vendors who can effectively replace internalis a bounty of problems for vendors to solve.
functions that are being neglected, or outsourced.Regardless of whether you are an insurance
Effective sales people who utilize consultativecompany or manufacturing widgets, senior
style selling techniques are adept at discoveringmanagers need to be proactively meeting with
customer needs that they cannot effectivelydecision makers to redefine their offer.
articulate. During the dot com bust, I held a seniorThis is not a time to allow salespeople to own
position for a national gourmet food supplier. Onecustomer relationships exclusively. To do so
day I fielded a call from one of our Regionalemboldens them not to share critical customer
Managers who asked if I would take a senior levelinsights that can reshape the service offering. As
meeting with him at a major U.S. retailer forbusiness development slows, salespeople engage
which our company had gained little traction. Iin more tactical thinking (such as cutting prices).
agreed to fly to Minneapolis with him to try andThis market presents the opportunity to teach
reign in the elephant.salespeople how to diagnose needs and to enable
During the meeting, I asked the V.P. a series oftheir organizations to provide more robust
fairly provocative questions such as "what aresolutions.