Страница 34 из 41
Equal-Rank Meetings
There are many other things you can do to build company-to-company trust. If top executives can meet each other, this reduces risk because they know that if the salesperson leaves, they still have someone at the top they can call on who has skin in the game. Corporate visits and executive meetings are also important because they assure buyers that there is a company vision that supports the buyer’s agenda — that the seller is going to continue to commit resources to product, industry, or geography.
Before Enron became the poster child for corporate abuse (before Ken Lay), the company was one of the best-run organizations in the southwestern United States.
During a very competitive evaluation, Joe Terry had developed relationships with the divisional presidents but had not been able to penetrate to the corporate executives.
Our chairman, John Imlay, was an icon in the industry and known as a very charismatic speaker. He was going to be in Houston to meet a very prestigious client, and Joe took advantage of the trip to arrange a breakfast meeting with the divisional presidents so that he could use John’s name to get an audience with the corporate executives.
John made a huge impression on Enron’s president and CEO. The CEO asked John, “We are considering investing a substantial amount with your company. What are you going to do to ensure our success?”
John smiled and answered, “I’m going to let Joe make the good decisions he always makes, and everything will work out fine.” Baton passed. Deal won. Happy client.
These equal-rank meetings are especially important overseas, where there are greater class differences between managers and non-managers. The executive may say nothing different from what the salesperson has said all along; it’s simply that the executive has the stripes. It’s important in these executive-to-executive meetings to make sure that trust is left with the account executive after the call.
If the executive steals power during the sales call, he or she can’t give it back. That executive is now the actual account manager, and the salesperson is now the gun bearer. Every effort must be made to pass power to the account manager during the sales call. This also reduces vendor abuse if the people inside the account know that you have inside access to executive management.
Relationships
One of the reasons I may trust you and your company is because you solve my problems. The other pillar of trust is personal relationships — moving from alignment to rapport to trust. If I am going to trust you, I have to know that I can depend on you for at least a win-win in every transaction. (Dependability alone is not enough. There are some people I can depend on to stick it to me every time.)
My father-in-law was trusted for 39 years in the insurance business because his clients all knew that he would never do anything to his gain and their detriment. Most of these rural people never quite understood the implications of the insurance they were buying, but they knew he would never do anything that wasn’t in their best interest.
This is called trusted-advisor selling (the seventh generation of selling), and the height of it is when the buyer says, “I’m not sure what I need. Why don’t you study it and tell me what I need. Whatever you’re selling, I’m buying.” It takes years to build this kind of trust with buyers and only one abuse to break it, but it is the highest level of selling.
Sometimes we trust people only because we know that the risk of loss of future business will keep them honest. Danger comes from sellers who only want to sell to you one time. This is why a contract is still important. Without it, there is really nothing to ensure that trust.
In order to trust you, I need to know that you are dependable. I need to understand your principles and values and trust that you will never do anything that is not in my best interest. Principle-driven people are consistent, not situational. And principles are values acted on consistently.
If that trust grows into personal friendship, this is even better. This is when I not only trust you, but I also enjoy your company. I appreciate your counsel, and you are fun to be around. This is a great benefit to the buyer-seller relationship, but if it doesn’t have the underpi
Even your best sponsors ca
In the end, the only thing your company really has to sell is trust. It’s at the heart of brand management. Just look at all the images in advertising that focus on trust.