Understand your customer

Building trust in customer relationships is critical to a successful sales cycle. To establish trust you need to understand your client’s needs and always keep their welfare in mind. Your ability to enter their world and understand it requires that you have a genuine rapport with them. Without heartfelt rapport it is difficult to develop trust and influence. People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Listen

Listening is the fastest way to gain understanding of your customer’s background. If you are successful in encouraging your customer or prospect to talk about themselves for 20 minutes, they will bond with you. This requires strict adherence to the 80/20 listening rule. That is, the customer talks for no less than 80% of the time: you actively listen for 20% of the time.

Here is a series of questions to ask that will help you understand your customer’s background.

How long have you worked here?
What are your responsibilities?
How long have you lived in this area?
How do you get to work?

Note behavior

Another way to learn more about your customer is to note their behavioral mannerisms. You should mirror and match their body language, tonality, and words. Phrases like, “I see what you mean,” “I hear what you are saying,” or “How does that make you feel,” let your client know that you are emotionally engaged.

To be better prepared to understand your customers’ behavior, I recommend you take a DISC assessment (discprofile.com/what-is-disc). It will determine if you are a Dominant, Influencing, Steady, or Conscientious communicator. Along with learning your behavioral style, invest time in learning the characteristics of the other three styles. Your goal is to explore how to meet your customers halfway between your style and theirs.