Relationship building is essential to any sales process, no matter what you sell. Whether it’s a product or service, B2B or B2C, sales will happen more, and loyalty will remain, if you work to build relationships. Ratchet and Wrench recently featured a story about relationships and ways salespeople can build, nurture and maintain them.

Relationship-​building boosters

• Ease their worries. Naturally, all buyers are going to have at least one or two concerns. As the seller, it’s up to you to ease those concerns. Also, many don’t even know what to expect from you or your business. The article notes that “the best way to build relationships with customers is to simply look at things from their perspective and treat them as you would treat a friend.” Get to their level and think about the questions/​concerns/​worries that you would have if you were them. Like the example used in the article, many auto repair customers have no idea what to expect when they enter a business. It’s up to the salesperson to assure them that they both have the same goal: Get their vehicle repaired and safely back on the road. Then, using your knowledge and experience, explain to them just how that will get done. 
• Show and tell. This is an important part of filling customers in and easing their worries. For relationship building, you need trust. A great way to encourage trust is to show rather than just tell. If you can, let the buyer see how you are going to help them. Like with the auto repair example, instead of just explaining what you will do, take the customer to their vehicle and show what you plan to do. This could also present the opportunity to point out any other ways that you could be of service for add-ons.

These suggestions, as well as the others mentioned in the article should get you thinking about how you approach relationships building. It is such an important aspect of sales, and it’s something that you should always be working on, no matter what stage of the sales process you are in.