My absolutely favorite aphorism for sales comes from the movie Jerry Maguire, when the titular character’s mentor and guru Dicky Fox says

“The key to this business” *claps hands* “is personal relationships!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyxWWYeXKBw

As a manufacturer’s representative my job role is all about personal relationships: making them, and keeping them.

In fact, it’s more about the relationships than it is about the brands or hardware. As I’ve explained to salespeople that I’ve mentored, “I don’t sell my products, my customer sell my products. My job is to make sure that they want to sell my products, and have all the information and resources they need to sell as much of it as possible.”

Shifting the focus away from products to people and from what you’ve got to what you can do for people is an enormous differentiator in the marketplace.

As one of my old mentors taught me, people buy from you because you offer both trust and value.

The value proposition is an easy one to provide; almost all your competitors can offer that.

Building trust requires a lot more work, but the results are worth it.

Relationships can make or break your business, so I put a lot of effort into cultivating them.

Because I make that effort, I’m the one that they call when they need something or want to know something. Because our relationship includes trust.

One of the challenges I face is that while many of the customers I have relationships with are the dealer principals, the owners, most of my relationships are with buyers, category managers, and inventory managers.

Their jobs are demanding, and not everyone is cut out for that kind of work.

Consequently, while there are many people I know who’ve held those roles for years, there are many more who come and go.

In retail it’s not uncommon for a new inventory manager to be on the job for six months, tell their boss “This sucks, I want to go back to sales” or to leave the company entirely.

Once, last year two of my dealers in Lloydminster Alberta both hired brand new inventory managers. So I made the five hour round trip to meet them face to face, buy them coffee, get to know them and make friends with them.

The way I see it, if I don’t do that my competition will.

One month later they both quit, and new faces were in those roles.

So, despite the fact that I normally drive to Lloydminster only two or three times a year I saddled up, drove out there, and got to know the new people.

When you take an interest in people, and look out for them, they look out for you. And that’s what it’s all about.