The skills required for selling and building customer relationships in the business-to-business world continue to dramatically change. Today, they’re changing faster than ever.

In a survey by MarketingSherpa, buyers and salespeople were asked, “Why do buyers leave?”

Not surprisingly, the top answer with salespeople was “Price”. The top answer with buyers, however, was “service”.

But multi-tasking, tighter deadlines, and technology have redefined the world of selling and how buyers define service.

Service was once measured by the amount of face-to-face time you dedicated to your prospects. Today, in our fast-paced world, it can be just the opposite and measured by how much of their time you don’t occupy.

In the book,The Platinum Rule by Ph.D.’s Tony Alessandra and Michael O’Connor, they suggest the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, be replaced with the Platinum Rule, “Do unto others as THEY want done unto themselves”. In other words, treat ME, like I want to be treated, not how YOU would like to be treated.

Reading your customers’ personality styles and adapting to their communication style is more important today than ever. Just because I like to communicate face-to-face and by telephone, doesn’t mean my client or prospect wouldn’t rather communicate via one of the many digital options.

And simply because someone is a Millennial, or a Gen X, Y or Z, doesn’t automatically mean they prefer to communicate 100% in the digital space. I know plenty of Baby Boomers that prefer to communicate digitally.

Today, we even suggest you ask your prospects and clients how they would like to communicate. They will tell you, because they want YOU to treat THEM the way THEY want to be treated!

Our Customer-Focused Communications workshops can help you understand what’s behind the emails you receive, and how to reach and influence your prospects with new technologies and the written word.    Click here if you would like to discuss.