Communication or Relationship Building?

You've heard this 1,000 times "This business is about building relationships"...right? I agree, by the way, that without the relationship your chances of any long term success are almost nil.

Now, while I don't need to teach a relationship building course to most of you, I would like to separate two key parts of any sales interaction with your referral sources for you.

Relationship Building - The part(s) of the sales call where you engage in dialogue that is likely to help you better understand your prospect, help them better understand you, and begin the process of building "like" and "trust". As such, there is no certain amount of time that you will spend doing this in each call, because it is dependent upon the person you are talking to and their needs for rapport building. Some people need very little, some people need a very lot, and most are somewhere in the middle. It is up to you as the sales professional to understand the rapport building needs of each of your contacts and to meet those needs accordingly.

Communication - Much different than relationship building. This is the part(s) of the sale call where you impart information you expect the prospect to use in making referral decisions for their patients. As such, it has nothing to do with where you bought your shoes, where your prospect's kids are going to college, or who is going to get married on "90 Day Fiance". It has everything to do with educating or teaching your prospect how to use the information you are about to present. When communicating with your prospects, it's vitally important to get to the point. Give them enough information to understand what your benefit is, enough direction so they know how and who to refer based upon it, and activate them by asking for the referral. With out incredibly short attention span in today's modern world people have little time for your agenda, while they may have all day for their own. 30-90 seconds of communication (i.e. selling) is usually the formula for success.

This can get confusing because both a long amount of time (rapport building) and a short amount of time (selling) can exist in the same sales call. It all and always comes down to one thing, serve the needs of your referral source and communicate as effectively as possible with them each time you meet them.

By the way, this doesn't only apply to in person communication. All communication can follow this rule. Phone, electronic, or written.

By the way...since many of you said you were going to expand your professional skillset with your downtime during the stay at home orders, we've created 3 live webinar classes this week to help you out. Closing, Presenting, and Using Behavior to Make More Sales take place from April 8-10 and are only $49 per person. Visit the Seminars Page for more details and to register today!

Good Selling!

Michael Giudicissi