Sales Management Fundamentals

Sales and Customer Relationships

• Long-term relationships with customers increase efficiency in the sales cycle, create social bonds, and reduce uncertainty.

Escalation of Commitment

• Escalation of commitment is a phenomenon where individuals, including salespeople, continue to invest in a decision despite negative consequences, such as lowering prices significantly to beat out competitors.

Customer Loyalty

• Salespeople can determine customer loyalty by asking questions like "Do you prefer us to other companies? If so, why?"

Building Credibility

• Salespeople demonstrate value by solving customer problems and building credibility through these actions.

Customer Wallet Share

• Customer wallet share is the amount of the customer's total spending that a business captures, and increasing it is often a less expensive way to boost revenue compared to increasing market share.

Customer Feedback

• Seeking customer feedback is one method businesses can use to find out how they are performing with their customers, but getting truthful and detailed responses can be challenging.

Building Trust

• To gain the trust of customers, salespeople must develop knowledge of their business and external factors that impact their operations.

Customer Advocacy

• The client-to-advocate strategy suggests that salespeople should satisfy customers and then exceed their expectations to delight them.

Buying Cycle Process

• The two main objectives of salespeople at the beginning of the buying cycle process are building credibility and understanding the buying company's situation.

Storytelling

• Storytelling, when done correctly, moves the customer closer to the purchase by showing empathy towards their problems and challenges.

Sales Acronym

• The acronym TALE stands for the elements of telling a story in a sales environment.

Salesperson Role

• A salesperson's role is to create value, which is determined by the customer.

Buyer Relationships

• According to Dr. Kent, buyer relationships have three factors of willingness: honesty, competence, and benevolence.

Time Management

• Many companies work on improving salespeople's time and territory management because time is always limited.

Demonstrating Competence

• Salespeople demonstrate competence by maintaining knowledge of how products and services work and their company's procedures.

Perceived Purchase Satisfaction

• Perceived purchase satisfaction is the difference between a product's expected and actual experience.

Lifetime Value

• The way a salesperson develops and maintains a relationship is a key determinant of lifetime value, and it's possible to keep the customer but ruin the account.

Competitive Advantage

• Using low pricing as a competitive advantage can leave a business easily replaceable and put downward pressure on profits.

Key Accounts

• A unique characteristic of key accounts is that business decisions regarding key accounts require extensive information gathering at the beginning of relationships.

Time Management Quadrant

• Steve Cubbie's 2x2 is a quadrant that allows individuals to characterize their use of time, categorizing tasks based on high and low urgency and importance.