The top rule of selling is to know your customer. But knowing your customer is not as easy as most people think, this also includes some experienced sales people.
There are three levels of knowing your customer, personal, social and value levels.
Some sales might think if I know customer's name, job title, what food he likes , and what is his favorite sports, they already know the customer very well. It is outright wrong! I am not saying the personal level acquaintance is not important. It is important as a door opener and also grant you the access to the relationship build-up, but don't be complacent, it is not sufficient.
Social level refers to the customer's relationship network. It is the sum of your customer's relationship in his personal life and the relationship in his work. How many family members your customer have, what they are doing? Do you know your customer daughter's birthday or pet's name? And if you know that, congratulations, you already make one great step further to maintain your customer relationships. Your customer's working relationship is also extremely important when comes to live or death of your sales. Who is your customer's supporter and friend, who is his opponent and enemy? What is your customer's role in the purchase decision loop? If you don't map out this carefully, you might step into a mind field without a detector in your hands and your deal will be put on line.
When your understanding to customers reach the second level, basically you already get hold of the customer's persona. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. In short, a customer's persona is his characteristic and attribute.
However, a persona is just the tip of the iceberg, in a metaphor to describe the complexity of human nature, the large invisible part of the iceberg actually is underneath the water and hardly visible. And value is the core of this invisible part.
Ayn Rand in her work "The virtue" of Selfishness" describes value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. It reflect's the central purpose of the human life and also the way people comprehend the world. The values determines our behavior and the choice we make in our life and work as well. The essence of the the sales job is to persuade or influence customers to take certain actions, ideally to our desire. Therefore, if you can decipher your customer's value, you are able to design a decision path that your customer would follow. That is already the half-win of your sales battle.
But to break the code of the value is very hard. Value is a metaphysical concept and embedded in our core, mostly at subconscious level. Although everyone has it, it could be even unknown to the person himself. Unlike the personal and social level, those knowledge we can gain through the conversations with your customers, simply ask. Nevertheless, asking a customer what is his value might get you a blank face. So the best way to do it is to consciously strike the talk with your customer and also carefully observe his behavior. By understanding the choice your customer makes and what your customer take into heart, you can reach the underwater part of the iceberg and see the whole picture.
Never forget the aim to know your customer, which is to facilitate your sales. In addition to your account plan, also lay out your plan to reach all the three levels of customer understanding, it will help you tremendously with your success in selling.
