Conrey is for Closers

Every once in a while you’ll do something that you do every day and get a different reaction. You’ll say the same thing to a client that you say every week during your meeting, or you’ll say something that you say to every potential client on the first phone call, and you’ll get a completely unexpected response.

It is easy to fall into the trap of habit and complacency when you get into a comfortable routine. Humans by nature seek out patterns and routine. It soothes that reptile part of our brains that says “eat, sleep, avoid getting eaten, reproduce” and not much else.

To a certain extent it makes sense to fall into a consistent pattern with your sales process. Make it the same for every client, make it trackable, make it clear what steps come first, second, third etc. Use the same word tracks that you KNOW are going to work a certain percentage of the time.

But every once in a while you’ll run into a Client where that doesn’t work. They return your phone calls when you don’t expect, they ask more questions than usual, they want to negotiate over things that you’ve never negotiated before. Your cute little pattern just got blown up – Now What?

If you’re average, you push back and try to shove them into the next box on your task list. You mold the Client to your process.

You probably lose the deal.

If you want to be great you adjust. You mold your process to the client and find a way to use that to move the client. Sales is still the art of getting the Client to do something they don’t naturally want to do – Buy your product – your job is to get them to do it willingly.

So you break your pattern, you try something new, you answer your phone at 7am or 11pm. You go above and beyond.

You probably still lose the deal. The Client who is most demanding is still the hardest to please. But every once in a while, you’ll do something you do everyday and go above and beyond for the client – and they’ll close on a big deal, or refer a friend who needs your product, or they’ll come back to you for a repeat sale – And they’ll say “Thank you for treating me differently”

Lesson for today: Treat every client differently – even in small ways – because if you don’t someone else will.