THE commercial approach if you want your client service to sell more.
Part 2.
You’re in the new position for growth. Where do you go from here?
In part 1 you saw that Client Service teams are different to professional Sales teams, and therefore need a different way to up their commercial intensity.
You now know that they can become more commercial in an easier and less daunting way than ever before. Clients even WANT them to be, as long as it’s in the right way, at the right time, with the right stuff.
With that knowledge in place, the second part of this blog is about taking your first steps from a Buyer Pull position.
Let’s look at the three critical first steps your teams need to take from a position of Buyer Pull:
1. Becoming available across multiple channels
Did you know that 95% of your buyers are not looking to buy anything at any one point in time? And that the vast majority (over 70%) of your buyer’s journey is done without you even knowing it?
Those two facts on their own make this a critical part of your first step in your Buyer Pull strategy.
It’s the part that drives your brand’s awareness, year-round, so when your buyers do come to market, you’re there with the right messages in the right places.
In order to do this effectively you need to know where they look for advice, guidance and inspiration. Ask your team if they know this. From our experience, when clients first identify a problem they need to investigate solutions for, they tend to go to information sources such as:
Colleagues
LinkedIn
Trade websites
General Google search
Their own client websites
Blogs in their specific area
Twitter
You can probably add to this list. The challenge is to drive your level of presence across the areas your clients go to for information and advice.
2. Being Ruthlessly Relevant
Once you’ve identified the channels they use, you need to stand out in them through posting ultra-relevant content.
This means doing your homework. Now, this could take up a big chunk of your time if you don’t already know what their challenges are. It’s a critical phase though, so to narrow it down think about putting together content based on one of the following three areas for your clients:
What are they currently working on (that you have an opinion/point of view about)
What should they be working on now – a new trend or development in their market that needs urgent attention
Fresh thinking on a topic/challenge/opportunity – that you can provide, and therefore there is a fear of missing out, FOMO, present
When you have your topic, create your content. It may be in the form of thought pieces, observations on trends or things that create success in that market, insightful data, sharing a conversation you may have had with an industry leader, a podcast…lots to choose from. But remember, once you’ve chosen what you think will be most relevant, go back to Step 1 and ask what is the most likely channel your buyers will see it in?
You’re now equipped with two things – being in the right place and knowing what to talk about. Now’s the time to get out of your comfort zone with the third step.
3. Developing the courage to start helping clients with your guidance
If your team currently don’t do this, it can be a little scary. Particularly if they only provide the deliverables of a service, e.g. data, documents, software, training on how to use something and so on.
But it’s importance has never been so high with regards to winning more work against the competition. Think about it - clients have nearly all the information they need at their fingertips. What’s going to make you stand out in a field of people potentially talking about the same thing?
Answer: Your own unique view and guidance on how they can solve their issue.
Those who provide a view and guidance win more, full stop. You need to get in this game if you’re not already.
Here’s a good way to get your people thinking about developing a view and therefore guidance. It’s a very simple three-step model (a lot of people only do the first two steps though)
WHAT – what is the topic/trend/development you know is relevant to the client, right now or imminently
SO WHAT – So what does that mean for your client? What will happen to them unless they take action? Will an opportunity open up, will their costs increase….?
NOW WHAT – What action do you recommend they take? Why? Where have you seen it work and how?
It’s imperative to go through all three steps in order to be able to provide guidance and advice. Doing so will start to elevate you above the competition in the eyes of the client.
Three steps to make up the start of your Buyer Pull journey. Try it with just one topic to begin with. Go through the process and by the end of it you will have your very own mini brand awareness campaign, ready to pull more buyers towards you. Not bad for three simple steps!