Relationships 101

When was the last time you tried something on in a clothing store dressing room and it looked fantastic only to get home and find out it looks completely different in different light? Katie Konrath at the Get Fresh Minds blog once talked about how J. Crew addresses this common occurrence by adding a daytime/nighttime light switch in their dressing rooms so you can see how their clothing will look at different times of the day.

BRILLIANT! It’s the little things that organizations do that make a huge difference. These are the things that, if we are customers, keep us coming back. And these are the things that we hear about that make us want to be customers.

It’s the Doubletree Hotel giving you warm chocolate chip cookies upon checking in to your room.

It’s the Nordstrom cashier walking out from behind the counter to hand you your packages and thanking you for the business after you’ve made a purchase…big or small.

It’s the staff at Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant on West Jackson in Chicago carrying around a basket of warm fresh doughnut holes for patrons waiting in line, in the cold.  

What these companies are doing is building relationships with their customers and prospects before, during and after the sale. In John Maxwell's book Relationships 101, Maxwell says the only way to know if you're connecting with your customers is if the following five characteristics are present in the relationship:

1. Respect When is comes to relationships, everything begins with respect, with the desire to place value on others.
2. Shared Experiences You can't be relational with someone you don't know. It requires shared experience over time.
3. Trust When you respect people and you spend enough time with them to develop shared experiences, you are in a position to develop trust.
4. Reciprocity One sided personal relationships don't last. If one person is always the giver and the other is always the receiver, then the relationship will eventually disintegrate.
5. Mutual Enjoyment When relationships grow and start to get solid, the people involved begin to enjoy each other.
    

So what about you and your organization? Are you trying to make a sales quota or are you building relationships? What’s one little thing you or your organization does to build relationships with your prospects?