Be relevant

Be relevant - For stronger relationships

Four stages balance emotional and rational messages: Attraction. Mirror your customers’ desires to create empathy. Conversation. Engage with your customer to establish understanding, exchange viewpoints. Experience. Begin the dialogue about your products and services within your customer’s context, and complete the sale. Advocacy.  Gain – and promote - your customers’ trust and endorsement.

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Relationships are your most important assets.

If we agree that relationships, along with our products and services, are our most valuable assets, then why does the B2B sector insist on valuing the tangible, visible and measurable at the expense of the intangible, emotional and unquantifiable? We have identified four relationship stages that help ensure we're talking in the right way at the right time.

Attraction is the catalyst of successful relationships.

Attraction happens extremely quickly. So take a look at your brand and ask how attractive you are to prospective clients. Even in established relationships we should do our best to retain our appeal. Let your standards slip and you pave the way for smooth-talking suitors.

Conversation generates value. Once your potential customer is attracted, the relationship moves to a deeper level of engagement, one of conversation and dialogue. This is when people cross the bridge mentally from outside to inside the group. Our experience has shown that conversations can change the game by altering the way value is perceived, and they help you position and prioritise your offer according to the customer's needs. This is where you can leave the competition behind and start to create greater value.

Experience: Make your performance stand out. Here the belief generated in the attraction and conversation stages is delivered and the relationship is consummated. At this point the relationship shifts from the intangibles of attraction and conversation to the tangibles of the product and service performance. This is where the deal is done and the Promises and conversations are delivered. Now it's over to you to deliver.

Use Advocacy to gain recognition. Finally, advocacy represents your customers' desire to express and endorse their satisfaction with you. When they share their belief in you, they also place their reputation on the line. So treat it as a great compliment - and promote it! Success breeds success.