Whether the enterprise is prosperous or not, the salesman's return is high or not, mainly depending on how many big customers he has. Large customers are often the cornerstone to support the steady progress of enterprises and the basis for salesmen to obtain high income. Therefore, when we approach a big customer, the first thing to do is to collect customer information.
Most of the big customers are full of wisdom and play an important role in the enterprise, belonging to middle and high-level managers. The enterprise structure is tight and the decision-making chain is complex, which is also the same feature of some large enterprises. When we carry out a sales project with major customers, we must first formulate a sales strategy, which is inseparable from the information of major customers, such as: who is included in the decision-making process of this project; What are their hobbies? What is their relationship in this decision-making chain, who participated in the competition with us and so on. Only with a certain understanding of this information can we make a careful sales plan.
Making sales strategy and collecting information of key customers mainly includes the following aspects:
First, customer needs. Whether it is a big customer or a small customer, the salesman must have a certain understanding of customer needs. The whole sales strategy should be formulated around this center, including organizational needs, departmental needs and key people's needs. These three elements are necessarily related. If an element can't meet its requirements, it may prevent us from completing our requirements.
Second, the decision chain. For some big customers, a decision is often not made by one person. For example, in a group enterprise, a decision can only be made after discussion by the board of directors, or the decision of a department manager can only be finalized after layers of reporting and approval. Therefore, it is also very important to know the member information of the decision chain.
Third, decision-making procedures and decision-making standards. We know that a large enterprise has its strict workflow and operating standards, which is also an important factor for it to become a large enterprise. For example, enterprises want to purchase a batch of steel, what are their standards for steel, whether our steel meets their standards and so on. Only by understanding these, can we communicate and cooperate with it more deeply.
Fourth, customer demand. Big customers have complete plans when purchasing, such as purchasing budget and purchasing methods. In addition, the understanding of the customer's purchase progress is also one of the factors that constitute the sales strategy.
Fifth, the opponent understands. To complete our project or sell our products to customers, we must first meet customers' needs and solve customers' problems to the maximum extent. As mentioned earlier, big customers are full of wisdom. He will not sign a contract with us because of our eloquence and Excellence in one aspect, but will consider the projects and products suitable for his own enterprise development from the overall situation. So, who are our competitors, what do they do, and so on. Understanding these can help us to make a better sales strategy.
The above information is necessary to make a sales strategy. Through the understanding of the above information, we need to personalize the management of these big customers, track them effectively, and make timely improvements to some places that are not in place, in order to make customers feel that our service is the best.
The acquisition of key customer information is the beginning of establishing business cooperation. What kind of information and how to get it are very important for establishing a cooperative partnership. In this process, we need to pay attention to:
◆ Customer organization.
◆ Customer enterprise scale.
◆ Importance of influencing the personnel of this project.
◆ Current development and business status of customers.
◆ Progress of competitors and customers.
There are many ways to collect the information of big customers, but some information is trade secrets for big customers except some public information. It may be difficult to get such information. We mainly proceed from the following aspects:
First of all, through the public information of major customers and interpersonal relationships in the industry, we are required to establish extensive and solid contacts, develop our own information channels among the original customers, and obtain valuable information. Some people say that connections are money veins, which will be very well reflected here.
Secondly, in the process of communicating with customers, we should create a relaxed environment for them to speak freely. Of course, for some big customers, every word they say may be very cautious, so we should exchange our sincerity for the sincerity of our customers and get effective information from them when they are unprepared.