.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Make a sale – that’s the easy part. Now comes the hard part: doing everything else.

That’s why it’s IMPERATIVE that salespeople look at the sale as ONE SMALL PART of the selling process. “Thanks for the order, Bill. I’ve given the details to our installation team, your deadlines to manufacturing and shipping, your training requirements to service, and your financial information to accounting.”

Making the sale is not just the money and the victory. It’s also the foundation for a relationship – as long as the rest of the process flows as you have sold it.

Too often salespeople “sell and run,” leaving details of delivery, installation and exceeding expectations to someone else. Big mistake. If you’re in sales, and you’re looking to make a successful career, you have a responsibility beyond a signed piece of paper.

Here are elements that make a relationship probable:

Deliver. Salespeople tend to delegate this process as much as possible, because they want to make the next sale. Quickly.

Perform as expected. Customers want top quality regardless of the price they paid. They also expect a quality person to be there to see things through.

Keep promises. Customers remember promises that salespeople make, most times better than the salespeople who make them. If the promises are kept, everyone wins.

If the promises are not kept, the salesperson loses.

Provide value. Value is what you do to help customers understand how they use and profit from what they purchase. CAUTION: What you believe is “valuable” may be perceived by the customer as “part of the sale.”

Serve personally. Customers expect you to anticipate needs and handle every aspect of the process.

Fix it yourself. When you get a call for service, DO NOT PASS IT ON. Handle it yourself. Customers don’t expect a runaround. They just want it handled and expect it from you.

Communicate weekly from the time you complete the deal. Until the initial process is delivered, and everyone has been trained or is comfortably using your products and services, communication should be frequent, and communication to customer requests should be immediate. After that, you build value toward the NEXT sale by staying in touch with (in front of) every customer every week.

WOW them. It may be something as simple as fast service or personal phone calls. But however your customer defines WOW, you’d better be executing it.

After the sale, salespeople know how to celebrate but seem to forget the prime fact that the customers didn’t just buy your product or service, they bought YOU. In fact, they bought you FIRST. And they feel let down, even abandoned, when the person they have faith in abandons the process after the deal has been consummated.

The best thing salespeople can do to avoid any disappointment on the customer’s part is set details for delivery BEFORE the sale is completed – or, if you’re chicken, immediately after the contract is signed.

If you do everything I have outlined, I can assure you customers will buy more, and they will buy again.

When this occurs, it’s not just a reason to celebrate. NOW you can ask for a referral and get one. NOW you have earned the next order.

Many managers make the fatal mistake of training salespeople to ask for referrals as soon as they make a sale. That’s a HUGE mistake. You haven’t even delivered. Why would anyone in their right mind want to help you before you have helped them?

I have a loyalty formula that will help you understand this process a bit deeper. Go to www.gitomer.com, register if you’re a first-time visitor, and enter the words LOYALTY FORMULA in the GitBit box.

Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached by phone at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2007 Jeffrey H. Gitomer